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THE
WORKS
OF THE
RIGHT REVEREND
WILLIAM WARBURTON,D.D
LORD BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER.
A NEW EDITION, JN TWELVE VOLUMES.
TO WHICH IS PREFIXED
A DISCOURSE BY WAY OF GENERAL PREFACE;
CONTAINING
SO:ME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE, WRITINGS. AND CHARACTER
OF THE AUTHOR;
JJY RICU4RD HURD,D.D. >,
1.UTID BJSHOP OF WORCESTER. si <" J *
— '
VOLUME THE NINTH. )
Hondou ?
Printed bij Luke Hansard $ Sim*, near T.incoln't-Tnn Fif'dst
J-OJl T. C'AUl-LL AND W. DA VIES, IN THE STRAND.
1811.
CONTENTS
OF
VOL. IX.
THE PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION, OCCASIONALLY
OPENED AXD EXPLAINED; IN A COURSE OF SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE HONOUR ABLE SOCIETY OF LINCOLN'S-INN.
DEDICATION to the MASTERS of the BENCH of Lincoln's- Inn -------- p. xv
SERMON L
THE NATURE AND CONDITION OF TRUTH.
John xviii. 38.
iUitc with unto him, IV hat is truth? Andivhcn he had said this, he went out again. - - p. i . A3
i CONTENTS OF NINTH VOLUME.
SERMON II.
GOD'S MORAL GOVERNMENT.
Psalm cxliv. 3.
Lord, what. is -wan, thatjhou takest knowledge of him? Or the son of man, that thou makcst ac count of him? - o- P- 33
SERMON III.
THE LOVE OF GOD AND MAN,
1 John iv. 20.
If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar-, for he that loveth not his brother > whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen ?------- p. 53
SERMON IV.
THE LOVE OF GOD AND MAN.
Proverbs xvii. 5.
Whoso mocketh the poor rcproacheth his Maker.
p. 67
SERMON V.
THE CHARACTER AND OFFICE OF THE MESSIAH,
i Cor. i. 30.
Jesus Christ, who of God is muck unto us tvisdojn, and righteousness, and sanctification, and re- 'demotion. -P-79
CONTEXTS OF NINTH VOLUME. VU
SERMON VI.
THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF THE MES SENGERS OF THE GOSPEL.
Matt. X. I 6.
Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst- of wolves : Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. - * - - - - P»125
SERMON VII.
THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF THE MES SENGERS OF THE GOSPEL,
Matt. v. 1 6.
Let your light so shine before men> that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven. P-]39
SERMON VIII.
THE EDIFICATION OF GOSPEL RIGHTEOUSNESS.
2 Pet. i. 5, 6> 7.
Giving all diligence, add to ^.jr faith virtue, and to virtue /.v/ozni £/«•£, and to htoic ledge temper ance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godlhicss9 and to godliness brotherly -kindness, and to brotherly-kindness charity. - p. 163 A 4
Vlll _ £&* TESTS' OP NINTH VOLUME.
SERMON IX.
OF CHURCH AUTHORITT.
Matt, xxiii. 9, 10.
Call no wan, your father, upon the earth: for om is your Father which is in Heaven. Neither be ye called masters: .for one is your Master^ even Christ. - .-•- *• * - - - • . -. p. 191
SERMON X.
OF CHURCH AUTHORITT.
Matt, xxiii. 2, 3.
The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses scat : All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do ; but do not ye after their works : for they say, and do not. - - p. 207
SERMON XL
OF CHURCH COMMUNION.
Luke ix. 49, 50.
And John answered and said, Master we saw one casting out devils in thy name ; and we forbad him, because he followeth not with us. And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not : for he that w not against mt is for its, - - - - p. 225
CONTENTS OF NINTH VOLUME. 1*
SERMON XII.
OF CHURCH COMMUNION.
Ephes. iv. i . 3.
/ beseech you, that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called — endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. p. 239
SERMON XIII.
THE INFLUENCE OF LEARNING ON REVELATIOX.
Luke xviii. 8.
— When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith <w the earth? p. 251
THREE
CONTENTS OF NINTH VOLUME,
THREE SERMONS PREACHED AND PUB LISHED ON THE OCCASION OF THE LATE RE BELLION IN 1745.— And,
A DISCOURSE ON THE NATURE OF THE
MARRIAGE UNION.
SERMON XIV.
OCCASIONED BY THE UNNATURAL REBELLION.
Preached and Published in the Month of November 1 745, while the Rebel-army was in England.
i Pet. ii. 17. Fear Gody Honour the King. - - * - p. 273
SERMON XV.
ON THJE GENERAL FAST DAY, DEC. 1 8, 1745*
Preached and published while the Rebel-army was in England.
Joel ii. 20.
/ will remove far off from you the northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and deso late. ---- p. 289
A DEFENCE of the preceding Discourse. - p. 304
CONTEXTS OF NINTH VOLUME. Xi
SERMON XVI.
Preached on the Thanksgiving-day, for the suppres sion of the late Unnatural Rebellion, in 1 746.
2 Cor. iii. 1 7. •Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty >
SERMON XVII.
PN THE NATURE OF THE MARRIAGE UNIOIT.
Matt. xix. 6.
What God hath joined together, let no Man put asunder. ---.----- p. 345
POSTSCRIPT to the Sermon on the Marriage Union. -----** - -: - - p. 360
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF THE
PIOCESE OF GLOUCESTER, in 1761 - p. 365
THE
PRINCIPLES
OF
NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION
OCCASIONALLY OPENED AND EXPLAINED ;
IN
A COURSE OF SERMONS
PREACllfD BEFORE
THE HONOURABLE SOCIETY OF LINCOLN'S-INN.
TO
THE WORSHIPFUL,
THE MASTERS OF THE BENCH
THE HONOURABLE SOCIETY OF LINCOLN'S-INN.
THE following DISCOURSES were preached, and ^re now published, with a view of vindicating Reiigi >n from the insults of Libertines, and the indiscretions of Enthusiasts. Nor will so fair a purpose be at ail sullied by the motive I had for tliis address : which was, only to acknowledge, in the most grateful manner I was able, my obli gations to the Bench for the honour done me, at the last vacancy, in the generous offer of the
Prcachership
Xvi DEDICATION.
Prcachership of the Society ; as well as for Your constant civilities to roe ever since I was honoured with the charge. These Discourses, therefore, such as they are, are humbly offered to You, by,
GENTLEMEN, Your most obliged and faithful Serv
Lincoln 's-Inn, r
NOT. 20, 1S5.V. W. VV/RBVRTeN.
SERMON I.
THE NATURE AND CONDITION OF TRUTH.
JOHN xviii. ver. 38.
PILATE SAITH. UNTO HIM, WHAT IS TRUTH?— AND WHEN HE HAD SAID THIS, HE WENT OUT AGAIN.
rinHE blessed Jesus was had before Pilate as a -*• criminal of State : and the Governor began to question him upon that footing. But when he found the kingdom, which this supposed Criminal was ac cused of claiming, was one merely spiritual, or, in Pilate's conception, a kingdom only in idea; he con sidered Jesus as no proper subject of his animadver sion. And so far he acted as became his public character.
But his incuriosity or indifference, when TRUTH was offered to be laid before him as a private man, and by one who, he knew, had the repute of exercising every spiritual power necessary to inforce it, shews him in a light much less excusable. The ne^linent air of his insulting question will hardly admit of an
VOL. IX. B apology.
2 S E R M O N I.
apology- " You tell me, says be, of Truth : a word in the mouth of every Sectary, who all agree to give that, name to^heir own opinions. While Truth, if indeed we allow its existence, still wanders at large, and un acknowledged* Nor does it seem worth while to realize and fix her abode : for those things which Nature intended for general use, are plain and obvious, and within the reach of every man."
Sentiments like these characterised the ruler of an Asiatic province, who had heard so much of Truth in the schools of philosophy, and to so little purpose. Pilate, therefore, finding a Jewish Sao;e talk of bearing witness to the truth, the pretended office of the Grecian Sophists, concluded him to be one of their mimic Followers. For it was now become fashionable amongst the learned Jews to inlist themselves into one or other of those schools. Thus the famous Philo was an outrageous Plato- nist: and Jesus calling himself a KING, this, and what was generally known of the purity and severity of his morals, probably made Pilate consider him as one of the STOICAL WISE MEN, who alone was free, happy, and a King ;
Liber, honor atiis, pulcher, Rex denique Regum.
Now, as on the one hand, the character of the Greek philosophy, which was abstracted and sequestered from civil business, made Pilate conclude, that the ministry of Jesus had nothing dangerous or alarm ing; so, on the other, its endless inquiries and quarrels about TRUTH, and which of the Sects had it in keeping, made men of the world, and
especially
S E R M O N I. 3
especially those whose practice declined the test of any moral system whatsoever, willing to be per suaded, and ready to conclude, that this boasted Truth, which pretended to regulate and direct hu man conduct, was indeed no better than a fanciful and shifting vision.
This, I presume, was the light in which Pilate considered the Saviour of the world. Had he suspected Jesus for the founder of a public Religion, to be erected on the destruction of the established worship of the Empire, the jealousies of the Roman Court, since the change of the Constitution, had doubtless made this servile minister of power very attentive and officious to suppress it in its birth.
But a religion, whose object was the TRUTH, was at this time so unknown a thing, that a Pa<ran Ma gistrate could have no conception of it, but as of a new sect of philosophy. All the Religions then in credit had for their object, instead of Truth, public utility ; and for their means, instead of Creeds and for mulas of faith, only pompous rites and ceremonies. So that if this corrupt Politician did, indeed, regard the doctrine of Jesus as a new Religion, it was such a one as some modern Statesmen have been said to form of it; a sort of divine philosophy in the mind\ from which, it is true, the governments and politics of this world have little to apprehend. For it was not till Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, that FelLv trembled. And had the Gospel, at this time, been represented to Pilate on its practical side, it is probable that lie, ns any other Statesman, had been in the same con-
B -2
4 SERMON I.
dition. But Such can hear talk of the TRUTHS of God" unmoved and unimproved, who tremble at his judgments, and anticipate the terrors of his vengeance.
But if the ill usage of Truth by the Philosophers could so disgust the Politician of old, as to make him indifferent to an acquaintance of this import ance ; What, must we think, will be her treatment amongst modern Statesmen, whose views are neither more pure nor more generous ; and whose penetra tion, perhaps, does not go much beyond the busy men of antiquity ; when they see her so freely han dled by those amongst us, who call themselves her Ministers, and profess to consecrate her to the service of Religion ? Amongst such, I mean amongst the active, no less than amongst the idle part of the fashionable world, Pilate's question is become pro verbial, when they would insinuate that TRUTH, like VIRTUE, is nothing but a NAME.
" What is this TRUTH, say they, of which the world has heard so much talk, and hath received so little information ? You boast of it, as the Guide of life, yet still its residence remains unknown. Which would tempt one to suspect, that either there is no such thing ; a thing essentially different from falsehood ; or that its nature is too fine and subtile for the grosser intellect of man to compre hend. But above all, what is that GOSPEL TRUTH, which its Ministers, in their very attempts to recom mend, are wont so much to discredit and abuse? We do not mean that dim Specter or Phantasm of it, which hath so long haunted and possessed the Schools: but, that which you call, its brightest
Substance,
SERMON. I. 5
Substance, as it sits inthroned in the hearts of the Faithful. How miserably is this shaken, not only by the dissentions of its Friends, but by every the slightest effort of its Enemies ! And while objec tions to Religion lie plain and level to the capacities of the vulgar ; the solution of them requires the utmost stretch of parts and learning to excogitate ; and equal application and attention to compre hend. From all this (say they) we are naturally led to conclude, That the Gospel-doctrines are no truths ; or at least truths of no general concern ; since they are neither uniformly held by those who are employed to teach them ; nor subject to the examina tion of such as are enjoined to receive them."
Something like this, I apprehend, may be the private sentiment of those who have more decently discarded all care and concern about the things of religion.
And as it cannot be denied but that men's acquired passions and appetites have concurred with the constitutional weakness of human nature to form these conclusions against Truth ; and especially that best part of truth, Religion ; Charity seems to call upon us to detect and lay open the general causes which have given birth to men's prejudices against both.
I. And first, with regard to Truth in the abstract ; the various hindrances to its discovery ; and men's backwardness to acquiesce in it, when found.
The principal and surest step towards the posses sion of the Good we seek, is our love and affection
B 3 to
6 SERMON I.
for the object. This quickens our industry, and sharpens our attention. So that the LOVE OF TRU TII hath been always recommended by the Masters of wisdom as the best means of succeeding in the pursuit of it. There is hardly any one who suspects he wants this LOVE : and yet, How few are there whom their confidence does not deceive ! We mistake the love of our Opinions for the love of Truth, because we suppose our own opinions true : and yet, for the most part, they have been.received upon credit ; and consequently are much more likely to be false. Hence, this imaginary love of Truth proves, in fact, little better than the love of Error : and the affections, being now misplaced, they are a greater impediment to us in the pursuit of Truth than if we had no affections at all concerning it.
How then shall we know when we have this love ? for still it is necessary we should have it, if we would follow Truth to any good purpose. It is difficult to describe what every man must feel for himself; and yet as dangerous to trust only to our feelings, when the object is so easily mistaken. However, When we set out in search of Truth as of a stranger, and not in search of arguments to support our familiar opinions ; when we possess ourselves in a perfect indifference for every thing but known and attested Truth ; totally regardless of the place from whence it comes, or of that to which it seems to tend; when the mind, I say, is in this situation, no one, I think, can fairly dispute the reality of its attachment.
i. But
S E II M ONI. 7
1. But our appetites rarely suffer us to observe this strict and rigid conduct. We seek the grati fication of our humour even in the laws which should correct it. Hence so many various SYSTEMS OF MORALITY, to suit every man's proper frame of mind, and bent of constitution. The indolent, the active, the sanguine, the tiegmatic,. and saturnine, have all their correspondent Theories. Now, in quirers of this turn must needs be admirably qualified for the discovery of Truth ! While just as one or other of the complexions carries him, the man is drawn by a strong, though hidden impulse, into the very centre of his congenial system. And what will be the issue? His concern, from henceforth, is not the trial, but the support of his opinions ; which can be no otherwise provided for than by keeping the arguments in favour of them always in view, and by striving to forget whatever seems to have a less indulgent aspect.
2. Prejudices mislead the inquirer no less than his passions. He venerates the Notions he received from his forefathers : He rests in them, upon the authority of such whose judgment he esteems ; or, at least, wishes them well, for the sake of the honours and profits he sees attached to the profession of them. Nay, he can persuade himself to patronize what he has once chosen, for reasons still more remote from the conclusions of common sense. He likes them because they are old ; because they are new ; for being plain and simple ; for being sublime and mysterious ; for
B 4 being
8 S E R M O N I.
being followed by the Few ; for being followed by the Many ; in a word, on a thousand other accounts, with which Truth hath no manner of concern. But this must never be forgotten, that, let Prejudice drive from what quarter it will, it is sure to make ship wreck of the Understanding, thus flattered and betrayed.
But then bad as this is, Since this too is certainly the case, that the impediments in the pursuit of Truth are not essential but accidental ; we may well account for our mistakes in setting out, the slow ness of our advance, and the rubs and oppositions in our passage, without having recourse to any sceptical conclusions in favour of the incomprehensi ble nature of Truth, or the inacessible situation in which the eternal Author of all things hath placed her. For is this any reason, that because some Truths are so deep, that our haste and impatience will not suffer us to sound them ; others so disguised, that our dissipation will not allow us the attention necessary to discover them ; and others again so suspected, that our prejudices dispose us to reject them ; that because some errors are represented so plausibly as to look like Truth ; others seem so commodious as to be wished Truth ; and others again appear so fashionable as to usurp all the preroga tives due unto it ; Is this, I say, any reason for sober men to conclude, that either there is no dif ference between what We call Truth and Falsehood ; or that the difference is so insensible that it will not perve us for a distinction? Our very Senses, in
many
S E KM ONI. 9
many cases, our Reason in more, and our Hearts in almost all, will convince us of the contrary.
II. We come next to consider the objections to
RELIGIOUS TRUTH.
i. And first, with regard to the Ministers of Religion, their passions and their prejudices. It is rather to be lamented than objected to us, that con secration to the service of heaven will not exempt good men from the frailties of humanity. As to the bad, indeed, if it does not aggravate their crimes, at least it renders them more scandalous : and, in general, when the matter is of high concernment, the passions both of good and bad are always, from the common impotence of our nature, proportionally inflamed, Mistaken constancy, or irregular zeal, makes this man tenacious of received opinions : and the obliquer affections of avarice or ambition make that man reverence such as are established. Opposition, likewise, will make both but too much disposed to obtrude what they suspect to be false ; and to secrete what they know to be true. This draws them still further from the road of Truth, while all they seek is to be at distance from one another's Parties and Opinions. So long, there fore, as these interests prevail, the plainest Truths will be disputed, and the most notorious Errors patronized and supported ; the obscurest Principles preferred to the clearest, and the subtilest conclusions take place of the most simple.
2. Inveterate
io S E R M O N I.
2. Inveterate errors concerning the nature and end of God's WRITTEN WORD, errors long since sanctified by time and authority, are another source of those disgraces to which Revelation is become sub ject The Gospel is so commonly honoured with the name of TRUTH; and holy Scripture in general so frequently recom mended for its capacity of leading us Into ail truth, that men have been apt to regard it as a treasury of Science ; and to apply to their Bible for all the principles of human knowledge. And under this delusion, the vain inquirer, to cover the dishonour of a fruitless search, hath always had recourse to that exhaustless fund, the human Imagi nation ; which is ever then most extravagant when Reason is at greatest distance. How miserably, for instance, hath the Mosaic account of the Creation been dishonoured by the wild and jarring expositions of men devoted to this or that sect of PHILOSOPHY or MYSTICISM ! Platonists, Materialists, Cartesians, Chemists, Cabalists, and all the impure fry of phy sical, philological, and spiritual Enthusiasts, have found their peculiar whimsies supported, and made authentic, in the first and second chapters of the book of GENESIS !
How, again, have the Jewish LAW and the GOS PEL of Jesus been abused by Slaves and Rebels ; or by such as were ready to become either ; to find, in one, the DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS; and, in the other, the Supremacy and DOMINION OF THE CHURCH !
But amidst all the folly and mischief attending
this perversion of the Bible, in support of human
20 system?
SERMON L ii
systems of Philosophy and Politics, had men only reflected, that, though Scripture be said to be written to make us wise, it is added — unto salvation* ; they would have sought for the principles of natural and civil knowledge amongst their proper Professors: and have studied Scripture only to investigate that wisdom which is from above; and is first PURE, then PEACEABLE 'f : a wisdom, which, at the same time that it enlightens the Judgment, rectifies the Heart ; and so takes away all ground of contention both from a perplexed head and a bigotted temper.
III. But the thing which, most of all other, indis poses sceptical men to the truths of Revelation is, " That the small remain of SCRIPTURE-TRUTH which the friends and ministers of Religion have left unimpaired, lies a prey to its enemies : obvious (they say) to a thousand objections ; and every objection level to the capacity of the Vulgar; while the solution of them not only requires the best abilities to frame and draw out, but the closest attention likewise to comprehend/'
Now, as this is supposed to affect both the nature of Truth in general, and the character of the Gospel in particular, we shall consider it in either light.
i. All objections to Truth must needs be founded in false judgment : False judgment proceeds from ignorance, or a superficial view of things : But this ignorance is the proper allotment of the Vulgar ; So
* 2 Tirn. chap. iii. 15, f Jam. chap. hi. 17.
that,
12 SERMON I.
that, what arises from thence, as referring to, and consonant with their capacities, cannot but make, a quick and easy impression. On the contrary, the solution of these difficulties must needs be formed on a true judgment of things. This judgment springs from a profound view of Nature. But such a view requires a large detail : and the mutual connexions and dependencies of things, a strict examination : hence the necessity of time to acquire, and of at tention to comprehend. These different properties in OBJECTIONS and SOLUTIONS are so constant and notorious, that the ease of questioning foolishly, and the difficulty of answering wisely, is become pro verbial.
Hence we collect, that even admitting Revelation to be true, it would be necessarily attended with the disadvantages here objected to it.
2. In vindication of the character of the GOSPEL it may be replied, That it is one thing to under stand the meaning of a truth delivered in a proposition, and another, to comprehend all the reasons on which that truth is founded. The first of these is all that is NECESSARY for man to know : For when God vouchsafed the revelation of himself to the world, he annexed SAVING FAITH to the knowledge and acceptance of clear and simple pro positions, such as these, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Redeemer of mankind. They mistake his Gos pel, and alter the terms of his Covenant, who put salvation upon the evidence to -be given of the NECESSITY OF A SAVIOUR. The learned Divine,
we
SE RMO N I. 13
we presume, is able to satisfy all serious inquirers, in both these particulars : But if the reasoning which proves the latter, exceed the capacity of the mere Vulgar, it derogates nothing from Revelation ; since the knowledge of that matter makes no part of the terms of our salvation. All, that man can wish should be indulged him, in consideration of his natural infirmities, is indulged him : For the utmost he could desire is, that the Truths, which come proposed to him from God, be plain and consistent; and accompanied with Credentials from the sender. Agreeably hereto, the fundamental doctrines, which the Christian religion objects to our belief, are the existence of one God, the Creator ; and his moral government of the world ; that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, sent by his Father to redeem man kind from sin and misery, and to restore them to eternal life, by the sacrifice of himself upon the cross ; and that the Holy Spirit is the sanctifier and enlightener of all those who walk worthy of the vocation wherewith they are called. Propositions of the utmost clearness and precision. Nor is the evidenee of their original less simple or intelligible -, such as the Miracles performed, and the Prophesies fulfilled, in attestation of them.
So admirably fitted for the gross body of man kind, is this Religion, both in its genius and promulgation ! No absurd incredibility in Nature, proposed; no blind submission to Authority, required. The doctrines, as clear as they are pure, equally solicit the Understanding and Affections ; and are adapted to satisfy the Reason, at the same time
ihat
M S E R M O N I.
that they allure the Will. In a word, uiforccd with that power and conviction as makes it difficult for an ingenuous mind to reject them, though under cover of that civil (but criminal) dismission of the Roman Governor.
IV. But then, " If these fundamental articles of tbe Gospel- covenant were contrived by divine Wis dom, with such simplicity and plainness, How came they, it will be asked, to be so delivered as to afford occasion for the inquisitive to start a thousand curious questions, which have no other tendency than to perplex and obscure them ? " To this, we beg leave to say, that, though, indeed, sacred Scripture, as far as it respects the essentials of the Christian faith, be exceeding ,clcar and simple, yet it does, at the same time, contain many profound, and even im penetrable mysteries. Mysteries, however, which no less manifest the adorable wisdom, than the open doctrines do the abounding goodness of our all-gracious Master.
The Gospel is a Covenant or Transaction of God with Man. The immense distance between the Parties contracting must needs make the several parts of the covenant very dissimilar. So that, if from Alan's nature and situation we may expect, that, when God vouchsafes to direct us by a revela tion of his WILL, all his commands will be brief, evident, and -full; we must, on the like reasoning, conclude from the nature of the other contracting Party, the God of the universe, that when he vouch safes to instruct Man in the revelation of his TRUTH,
there
S E II M O N I. i-
there will be some things in the Covenant of Grace, which will partake of the sublime obscurity of its Author.
It was the same God who framed the Christian (Economy and the Newtonian System. Why there fore should it be matter of objection to the former, and not to the other, that there are many things sur passing human comprehension in both ? Is the doctrine of Grace more stupendous than the velocity of Motion given to Light ? Or is the incarnation of the Son of God more astonishing than the least possible quantity of Matter sufficient to make a World ? If therefore the Newtonian philosophy (which is built on Science) hath revealed and demon- srated the .powers of Nature amidst all that darkness; how can we doubt of seeing God in his Gospel, though surrounded with the impenetrable depths of infinity ? In a word, I think we might as reasonably conclude against the divine original of the Gospel, if there were no traces of such mysterious parts, as if there were only such. An unclouded splendor, and undiluted obscurity, equally discrediting the Works and Dispensations of Heaven.
But, of the dark parts of Revelation there are two sorts: one, which may be cleared up by the studious application of well -improved talents; the other, which will always reside within the shadow of God's throne, where it would be impiety to intrude.
However, neither the one nor other make part of the essential doctrines of our Faith. The impene trable nature of the latter totally unfits them for objects of religious belief; and the diliicult com pre hension
16 SERMON I.
hension of the former unfits them for becoming objects of the People's. But as it is this sort only which can afford any reasonable ground to the objection before us, we shall be a little more particular.
The Gospel professes itself to be the completion of one entire System, advancing by a gradual pro gress, through various Ages and People, from the Creation of man to his Redemption. A Dispensa tion of this character cannot but be contrived and conducted on principles of the sublimest wisdom. So that as, on the one hand, the knowledge of the relations of the parts to one another; and their various coincidencies, and mutual operations, to produce, either their distinct, or their united effects, will be extremely difficult; so, on the other, the attainment of this knowledge will be necessary, if we aspire to that full and comprehensive idea of Religion, which can alone enable us j;o detect and satisfy the doubts and cavils of Infidelity.
Now, in this consists the ratio and essential grounds of the Gospel- doctrine; of which, one would think, the only issue should be credit, and glory to the Christian Faith. But unadvised inquir ers exploring the depths of infinite Wisdom without modesty and reverence, have given a handle to licentious men to turn these proofs, explored im properly, and imprudently inforced, into an argument against the divine original of Revelation. And this pretence making its appeal to the ignorance of the Vulgar, is greedily embraced. In the mean time, the solution of the cavil demanding an enlarged
view
SERMON I. 17
view of God's moral economy, acquired by the right application of general knowledge, well digested, we need not wonder, that a better understanding than commonly falls to the share of the People is required to enable us to see the force of such
reasoning.
But is this general incapacity any real objection to the truth of our Religion? By no means. It is perfectly agreeable to our ideas of God's moral attributes, that he should inform men of his Will; that he should deliver to them a rule of action, accompanied with the sanctions of a Law : It is as conformable to our ideas of Man's relation to his Maker, that he should receive and observe this Law. Reason, indeed, expects that the delivery of it be attended with these conditions, That the pro positions in which it is contained be clear and intelligible; the truths in which it is conveyed, agreeable to the nature of things; and the pre tensions of those intrusted with its propagation, confirmed by superior power. Along with this Law i* proclaimed the free gift of a general blessing ; which the Giver might bestow at his pleasure, as well in one reasonable way as in another.
Has rnan any more to expect before he vouchsafes to accept this free blessing, or condescends to be governed by this equitable Law ? Reason says, No. But Passion and Prejudice stand out. cf We want, they cry, to be informed how we came to stand in need of this Salvation. We want to be instructed in the ratio or essential grounds of the doctrine propounded,'*
VOL. IX, C Now
x-
18 SERMON I.
Now if divine Wisdom had not thought fit to com ply with so bold and insolent a demand, Could we accuse him of being wanting to his favourite Man ? Surely we could not. Yet God hath been graciously pleased to humour our caprice. He hath laid open the depth and riches of his System so fully, as to enable those, who are duly qualified with human knowledge, to satisfy these demands, and to explain the WHY of his economy of Redemption.
Will this content us ? By no means. " The solti- " tion, it is said, is founded in such principles of c< speculative science as the People can never com- " prehend." But for this, there is no remedy. The fault, if there be any, lies not in the mode of the religious Dispensation, but in the nature of Truth itself: Which requires much attention of the best gifted and best improved understanding to penetrate to its general principles. Would you have the eternal nature of things altered to gratify your prejudices? Truth, no more than its Author, can sink to the level of your ignorance ; but You, by a proper cul tivation of your reason, may rise to Truth, may reach its sublimes t heights, its residence near the footstool of the Almighty.
<c This attempt, you say, the station and condition of the people will never suffer them to make; they have neither leisure to learn, nor opportunities to philosophise." — Be content then with those simple principles, and plain argu ments for Religion, explained above : and have the candour and honesty to own, that, if you want knowledge to judge of the answers of the learned, to
infidel
SERMON I. 19
infidel objections; you want it equally to judge of the objections themselves ; which, therefore, should never indispose you to what you do understand ; Principles, which constitute those essential articles of faith by which you must be saved. And if the higher and more intricate truths of Religion exceed your capacity, be assured (if for no other reason than this) that you may be safely ignorant of them. In the concerns of life, about which, men are generally more in earnest than in the affairs of Religion, you take the conclusions of Science upon trust, and erect them into principles : You navigate, you build, you state accounts, and trust to the mathematician for the ratio of those rules by which you work and at tain your purpose.
But to this you will say, " It is true, indeed, that in the common affairs of life, men go on upon trust ; but then uniform experience shews, they are in no danger of being deceived ; for the constant success attending the operations, thus conducted, assures them, that the rules by which they act are deduced from principles of Truth." — And is that FAITH and OBEDIENCE, which constitute us the disciples of Christ, less uniformly productive of good? Did Faith ever violate civil peace ; or Obedience impair domestic felicity ? In vain you tell us of that frantic Zeal, of that dire Superstition, which have set whole Kingdoms in a flame, and desolated private Houses. The first mischief they always do is to corrupt FAITH and OBEDIENCE : and after this, to charge upon these, the evils caused by their destroyers, is adding mockery to injustice.
c 2 And
20 SERMON I.
And here let me observe, that the Founders of our holy Faith were in this, as in all other parts of their conduct, truly admirable. What they chiefly insisted on to the People at large, was the BELIEF of a few simple propositions, as necessary to Salva tion. When they addressed themselves to such Particulars who were fitly qualified and rightly dis posed, such who have heads to distinguish, and hearts to chuse the right, they as warmly recom mend EXAMINATION, to search the Scriptures, and to try all things. Yet the only use a late writer could find in so sage and generous a conduct was to turn it to abuse, in a piece of profane drollery, called Christianity not founded on argument. An egre gious exploit ! and worthy the Author's charitable views; the mock consolation of Fanatics, and the sly merriment of Sceptics and Unbelievers.
But now, we are stopt short and told, that all our pains might have been well spared ; for that the ne cessity of these profound defences, so much em broiling the learned and embarrassing the Vulgar, doth not arise from the nature of truth, but from the folly or knavery of its Advocates. " It is astonish- " ing (says the Objector) how Divines could take " so much silly pains to establish mystery on me- " taphysics, revelation on philosophy, and matters " of fact on abstract reasoning. A Religion founded " on the authority of a divine Mission, confirmed " by prophecies and miracles, appeals to fact : and " the facts must be proved as all other facts, " that pass for authentic, are proved. If they arc (t thus proved, the Religion will prevail without
" the
SERMON I. 21
" the assistance of so much profound reasoning *." To which I reply, That, had this charge on the Di vines been well founded, the objection would yet have been uncandid and disingenuous. For who were they that drew the Divines into metaphysics, philosophy, and abstract reasoning, but these Ob jectors themselves? And on what occasion, but this ? — The advocates of Revelation did not want to be told that a " Religion founded on the authority " of a divine Mission, and confirmed by prophecies " and miracles, appeals to facts," and was to be proved by human evidence : For in reality, by FACTS they had already proved it : And with such force and Evidence, that unbelievers were driven from their Objections to the Facts, and reduced to take refuge in Philosophy — " You press us with facts (say they) and the testimony of antiquity : supports too slender to bear the unnatural load of REVELATION ! A thing impossible in itself, as it opposes the established order of Providence : A thing impossible under the Bible representation of it, as several passages in that book directly oppose our common notions of God's Attributes." — In this strait, what was to be done, but either to confess the force of the objection ; or, by the aid of that metaphysics, philosophy, and abstract reasoning, which the last objection appeals to, and which the other condemns, to shew its futility and weakness. For the constitution of nature cannot be explained without metaphysics ; and the Attributes of God
* L. B's Letters concerning the study and use of History.
c 3 cannot
22 S E R M ONI.
cannot be confronted with his supposed commands, without the use of abstract reasoning. And yet, for submitting to this necessity, for undergoing this drudgery, the Divines are upbraided, ridiculed, and turned into contempt. A nd by whom ? By the very men who occasioned the distress, and defied them to get out of it.
Nor is this the worst The Divines are repre sented as applying their " metaphysics, philosophy, " and profound reasoning, to prophecies and inira- " cles." How gross the misrepresentation ! They had more wit, they had more honesty (I speak not here, nor does the Objector, of two or three crack-brained visionaries), than to take so much silly pains. They applied this reasoning as became them ; not to mat ter of FACT, but of RIGHT. It was pretended, that God could not give a Revelation ; that he could not select a chosen People ; that he could not accept a vicarious atonement. And against these bold as sertions, the Christian Divine directed all the force and evidence of true Philosophy. — With what suc cess, the latest posterity shall tell with gratitude.
V. But it is not only from what lies hid, but from what hath been discovered, that the enemies of our Faith can raise objections to its discredit. If, in these later times, it hath been pretended, that a more rational idea of God's dispensations hath been proposed ; if the various genius, the comparative excellence, the mutual dependence, the reciprocal illustrations of the several Parts, and the gradual progress of the Whole towards perfec tion,
S E R M O N I. 23
tion, have been investigated with a penetration, solidity, and precision unknown to those ages which time alone hath taught us to esteem venerable ; if, I say, this hath been pretended; We are then asked, " How it came to pass, that Truths, so sublime and useful, should have lain hid till now ; When the light of the Spirit was sent so early, and had illuminated the Church so long ? How it came to pass, they were denied to the best times ; and, after a long course of ages, reserved as a reward for the very worst ? " — And when they have asked this, to discredit OLD truths ; they can, in order to increase the prejudices against them, join with bigots, how inconsistently soever, to decry the NEW.
To this objection, it is sufficient to reply, That the promise and gift of the SPIRIT may be con sidered either as it concerned the first propagators of the Word ; or as it concerned the teachers and hearers of it ever since. As to the immediate disciples of Christ, there is no doubt of their being abundantly enlightened for the work of their minis try ; whether it was in making converts, in founding churches, or in composing those occasional instruc tions, by which Christians of all ages may improve the current benefits they receive from the assistance of the same Spirit. — And that assistance is the second point we are to consider.
Now the endowment of Grace is, in this respect, just the same with every common endowment of Nature ; of little advantage without our co-opera tion ! God hath given men hands and feet, to c 4 procure
24 SERMON I.
procure good and to avert evil. But the benefit does not operate like a charm ; it is to our dextrous application of the members that we owe all the advantages arising from their use. So it is in the free-gift of the Spirit : it was bestowed upon us to enlighten the Understanding, to assist the Judgment, and to redress the disorders of the Will. But if either we refuse to exert these faculties, or will direct them to improper objects, the use and efficacy of Grace must surely be defeated. These reflec tions will enable us to give a reasonable account how it might happen, that very important truths, concerning God's moral Dispensations, may have remained hid for ages, and yet be reserved (to the greater glory of his Gospel in its greatest need), for the discovery of these worse and latter times.
This supposed ordonance, in the ceconomy of Grace, may receive credit from what is confessed to have happened in the economy of Nature.
The power, wisdom, and goodness of the Author of the System to which we belong, is so clear and evident from every obvious configuration of Matter surrounding us, that it cannot escape the notice of the most inattentive, or lie concealed from the most ignorant. Hence a GOD, the Maker, Preserver, and Governor of the world, is the concurrent voice of Nature.
Now CREATION and GOVERNMENT, from which the morality of human actions is deduced, are the great principles of NATURAL RELIGION. So that God could not be said to have been wanting in the discovery of himself to the lowest of his reasonable 20 creatures.
SERMON I. 25
creatures. Yet though the obvious marks of his Power, Wisdom, and Goodness, thus obtrude them selves upon all men ; it is certain that a well-directed study, in the contemplation of the great book of Nature, opens to us such stupendous wonders of his Power, such awful scenes of his Wisdom, and such inchanting prospects of his Goodness, as exceed all conception of the unlettered and uninstructed Spectator. Some faint taste of these beauties, the more Inquisitive enjoyed very early : But their successors, by too much indulging to SPECULATION, and allowing too little to EXPERIENCE, instead of finding a real, invented an infinite variety of ideal Worlds ; all as dishonourable to the Author of Nature as distant from his Truth. At length, men grew wiser by the follies of those who went before them ; and a different method of studying Nature was invented and pursued; in which Fancy was excluded, and Fact only allowed for a solid ground of physical progression. From this time, Science advanced ; the veil of Nature was drawn aside ; and her sacred Mysteries exposed to the open admiration of all men.
This was the case in the System of Nature. The System of Grace seems to run exactly parallel.
The great principles of Revealed Religion are FAITH and OBEDIENCE : And these are clearly and fully taught in the Gospel ; and are alone sufficient to make men wise unto salvation. But we should greatly derogate from God's Moral govern ment, not to suppose it abounding with the like mysterious wonders as the Natural. And to the
study
26 S E R M O N I.
study of these, there were more calls, and much better opportunities. The knowledge of God's moral Dispensation is the duty of every man ; and more especially of the Ministers of Religion : So that partly on account of the importance of the subject ; part'y to enable us to oppose ourselves to the malice and sophistry of the enemy ; but prin cipally in obedience to the command, to study the Scriptures^ it has, from the first ages of Christianity down to these times, been one of the principal occupations of the Learned. Yet what through unfavourable circumstances in the Civil and Literary world; what through the bias of inveterate pre judices ; but, above all, from the oblique interests arid turbulent passions of the inquirers themselves ; the various systems of Religion, invented by Divines, and which all pretend to find in Scripture, have dishonoured the Redemption of mankind near as much as those of the Philosophers had dishonoured the Creation of the universe : till here, as in the other case, the same spirit of prudence and sobriety, which taught men the true method of treating the things of Nature, by a careful study of the volume of creation, led them into the right way of treating the things of God, by a careful study of the volume of Redemption. So that if, in these times, the advances in the knowledge of God's WILL should haply prove as considerable as those in the discovery of his WORKS, it will not be beside a reasonable expectation ; as similar means are always likely to produce similar effects.
We have placed these correspondent histories of
the
S E R M O N I. 27
the progress of the human mind, in NATURE and GRACE, thus near one another, that, by comparing the parts of them together in the same view, we may see whether there he any objections to the truth of new discoveries in religious matters that do not equally hold against the truth of new dis coveries in natural ; of which, for their newness alone, no man ever yet entertained the least sus picion.
First, then, as to God's primary discovery of his Nature in the great book of Creation, compared to the discovery of his Will in the volume of his written word, we may observe his goodness in either case to be equally conspicuous. In the former, a man need but open his eyes to see the Divinity in every object; in the latter, he who runs may read the means and method of his own Salvation: In neither, is any thing wanting, that is necessary, to instruct the most ignorant in their dependance, and their duty. For further information in the works and wavs of Providence, God wisely reserved it for the reward of the manly and virtuous improvement of the Under standing.
It is true, in fact, that throughout a vast series of ages, neither of these Inquirers made any very considerable advances in real knowledge : but it is as true, that the impediments, in both cases, pro ceeded not from any difficulties in the nature of the things inquired after, but from the wrong methods employed in the search. Instead of endea vouring to find out the real constitution of things
from
28 SERMON I.
from the frame of God's works, as they are objected to our senses ; or the nature of Revelation from the study of the word, as conveyed to us in Scripture ; they invented imaginary Systems out of their own slender stock of Nothing ; and then, hy wresting and distorting, forced Nature and the Bible to father this shadowy and spurious issue.
But both Divines and Philosophers, when they became convinced of their follies, and, in con sequence of that conviction, proceeded with more modesty, as well as better sense, to renounce their fanciful Hypotheses, and to erect Theories on the real constitution of things, Both, I say, made great advances in natural and religious truth.
These two important studies, therefore, being alike circumstanced, and having run the same fortune, demand, in all reason, the same judgment to be passed on their pretences.
But, alas! we are not accustomed to be thus equitable. One of the principal sources of human errors is the drawing different conclusions from the same principles.
It is confessed, that the book of Nature is so plain and clear, that every sentence names and reveals its Author : that if less obvious Truths have lain a long time concealed, it was men's own fault, in adhering to a perverse method of inquiry ; and that when afterwards a better was invented, and they began to apply it with more care and sobriety, knowledge opened and enlarged itself proportion - ably: while the sudden blaze of light which followed, was so far from making Truth suspected, that it
dissipated
S E R M O N I. 29
dissipated all those doubts which had before been held of its obscure and equivocal nature.
But now if we turn from Physical to Religious inquiries, we shall find, that the very contrary inference hath been drawn from all the same circum stances. Because men had been long unsuccessful in the discovery of the higher truths of Religion, nut only these, so lately found and so difficultly comprehended, but even the most obvious prin ciples, early delivered and generally received, have been rendered doubtful and suspected.
But there is another sort of Men, the pretended friends indeed of Religion, who, from too great reverence for things established, have joined with such as have too little, in decrying all XOVP:LTJES in religious matters.
These Men, abhorring the vanity to be thought wiser than their forefathers, have in express terms declared their displeasure at making what they call experiments hi Religion,
Divines, it is true, have long disputed how experiments in Religion should be made. Some would employ Scripture alone ; others were for taking in Fathers and Councils ; and a third sort for applying raillery and ridicule to the process. But, till of late, every man was for some experiment or other. For what is making experiments but (as we have just shewn) illustrating Revelation by new arguments arising from new discoveries made in the order, fitness, and harmony of the various dispensations of Religion amongst themselves, just as Philosophers (of whom the word is borrowed)
unfold
30 S E R M O N I.
unfold nature by new discoveries made, from re peated trials, in the contents of bodies.
No experiments in Religion is indeed the Language of Statesmen (for in some things bigotry and politics agree, as extremes run easily into one another by their very attempts to keep at distance), because, according to the Politician's Creed, Religion being useful to the state, and yet only a well-invented fiction, all experiments, that is, all inquiries into its truth, naturally tend, not to confirm, but to unsettle this necessary support of civil Government.
But, for one who believes Religion to come from God to be frighted with the danger of experiments, is to take his friend for his enemy, the most ridi culous of all panic terrors.
One might reasonably ask such a one, how it comes to pass that experiments, of so sovereign use in the knowledge of Nature, should be calculated to make such havoc in Religion ? Arc not both the works of God ? Were not both given for Man's contemplation ? Have not both, as proceeding from the common Master of the Universe, their depths and obscurities ? And doth not the unfolding the mysteries of moral government tend equally, with ttie displaying the secrets of the natural, to the advancement of God's glory, and the happiness of Man ? In a word, had no experiments been made in Nature, we had still slept in the shade, or wan dered in the labyrinth of School Philosophy ; and, had no experiments been made in Religion, we had still kept blundering on in the rugged and dark paths of School-divinity.
To
SERMON I. 31
To end as we began, with the instruction afforded by my text. What reason seems to require of us is this ; That if yet we know not THE TRUTH, we should seek it of those who do : and if the plain and simple principles of it will not serve our turn, but that we will needs philosophize, and demand a reason for every thing, that at least we stay for an Answer ; and stay, too, till we understand it, before we venture to pronounce the Religion of our country to be nothing but a mere human imposition.
SERMON 11
GOD'S MORAL GOVERNMENT. PSALM, cxliv. ver. 3.
L0RD, WHAT IS MAN, THAT THOU TAKEST KNOW LEDGE OF HIM ? OR THE SON OF MAN, THAT THOU MAKEST ACCOUNT OF HIM?
rlH H U S the holy Prophet, seized with a sacred -*- horror at an UNIVERSE stretched out through the immensity of boundless Space ; and with a rapturous gratitude for that GOODNESS who has graced his favourite Man with so tender and so intimate a regard.
Meditations of this kind are, indeed, most obvious and affecting. The RELIGIONIST and the MAN OF THE WORLD have equally employed them to reduce Humanity to its just value ; though for very different purposes ; the first, to excite religious gratitude in others ; the second, to encourage him self in an impious NATURALISM.
When the Religionist con), .re9 this small Spot of earth to the whole of its System > and sees a number of primary and secondary planets, habita-
VOL. IX. D tions
V
34 S E R M O N II.
tions like his own, if he may judge by probable analogy, rolling round with it, and performing their various revolutions about one central fire, the common source of light and warmth to all, He is abashed at the mean and diminished rank his own world bears in this solemn and august assembly.
When, by the aid of improved Astronomy, he com pares this subastral economy with the systems of the fixed stars ; every one of which reigns a Sun, directing and influencing the revolutions of its atten dant planets ; and sees that, as the Earth is but a point compared to the orb of Saturn, so the orb of Saturn itself grows dirnensionless when compared to that vast extent of space which the stellar-solar Systems possess and occupy ; This Lord of the crea tion shrinks suddenly from his height, and mingles with the lowest crowd of unheeded and undistin guished Beings.
But when, by the further aids of science, he un derstands, that a new Host of Heaven, too remotely stationed for the naked sight to draw out and re view, hath been made to issue into day ; each of which shining strangers is the Leader of a troop of others, whose borrowed lustre, too weakly reflected, no assistance of art can bring forward ; and that still, when sense stops short, science pursues the great discovery, and reason carries on the progress through the mighty regions of boundless space ; the fatigued imagination, tracing system after system, as they rise to light in endless succession, turns frightened back upon itself, and overwhelms the labouring mind with terror and astonishment :
whence,
SERMON II. 35
whence, it never can disengage itself till it rises on the wings of FAITH, which bear this humbled crea ture from himself, and place him before the throne of Cod ; where he sees the mysteries of that Provi dence laid open, whose care and bounty so magni ficently provides for the meanest of his creatures.
Thus piously affected is the Religionist with the sacred horrors of this amazing scene ; an universe stretched out through the wide regions of space, and terminated on all sides by the depths of infinity.
But let us turn now to ths Man of the world, whom this view of things, rather DEGRADES th.in HUMBLES. Calmly contemplative in the chair of false science, he derides the mistaken gratitude of the benighted Religionist ; a gratitude rising not on reason, but on pride. u For whether, says he, we consider this earth, the mansion of evil, or man its wretched inhabitant, What madness is it to suppose, that so sordid a corner, and so forlorn an occupant, can be the centre of God's moral government ! What but the lunacy of self-love could make this short lived reptile, shuffled hither as it were by Fate, and precariously sustained by Fortune, imagine himself the distinguished care, and the peculiar Favourite of Heaven? As well, says he, might the blind inhabit ants of an ant-hill, which chance had placed on the barren frontier of an extended Empire, flatter them selves with being the first object of their monarch's policy, who had unpeopled those mighty deserts only to afford room and safety for their busy colonies. The most, that reasoning pride can tempt us to pre sume is, that we may not be excluded from that
r> 2 general
36 SERMON II.
general providence, governing by laws MECHANI CAL, and, once for all, impressed on matter when it was first harmonized into systems. But to make God the MORAL, that is, the close, the minute and immediate inspector into human actions, is degrading him from that high rank in which this philosophy of inlarged creation hath so fitly placed him : and re turning him to the people, tra vested to the mortal size of local Godship : under which idea, the super stitious vulgar have been always inclined to regard the Maker and Governor of the World."
Thus widely distant are the conclusions of the philosopher, from the sentiments of the religious man.
But who are the inlarged thinkers, and on which side reason declares, it is the purpose of this discourse to inquire: Where, we trust, it will be found, that Man, notwithstanding the vast distance between him and his Creator, is indeed the subject of God's MORAL government, just as instinct prompts him to hope, and religion directs him to believe.
I. If from the difference of intrinsic dignity, and native worth in the CREATURE, we can conclude aught concerning the proportioned degrees of near ness in which it stands to its Creator, we shall be forced to give the place of honour to MIND above MATTER.
We are dazzled with the pomp and splendor of a visible Creation : and the august forms of material things hinder us from discerning the despicable qualities of that substance out of which they are
fashioned.
SERMON II. 37
fashioned. But view this substance well, and we shall find, that what philosophers call the INERT NESS of Matter, a quality essential to it, places it in the very lowest class of what we can conceive of Being. So that were it not for the virtue of ATTRACTION, a thing foreign and extrinsic to it, Matter would be totally unfit for all the known pur poses of its Creation.
To make Matter, therefore, any way considerable, its accumulated bulk must supply for its inherent baseness. And yet the best Philosophy, proceeding on geometric principles, hath informed us, that possibly all the solid matter in the universe may be comprised within a narrowness of limit * still more astonishing than .even that immensity through which we find it dilated and expanded.
Thus MATTER carries in it no further marks or notice of a creating Hand, than an aptitude of fall-
* See Newton's Opt. p. 243. Svo Ed. — te The Saga- " city of our author [Newton] (says Dr. Pemberton, " in his excellent View, &c.) has discovered a method " by which — the least portion of matter may be wrought " into a body of any assigned dimensions how great " soever, and yet the pores of that body none of them " greater than any the smallest magnitude proposed at " pleasure; notwithstanding which, the parts of the body " shall so touch, that the body itself shall be hard and " solid. Which shews that this whole Globe of Earth, " nay all the known bodies in the universe together, as " far as we know, may be compounded of no greater a " portion of solid matter than might be reduced into a " Globe of one inch only in diameter, or even less." View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy, pp. 355, 356.
ng
38 SERMON II.
ing back into nothing on the withdrawing the in fluence of that power which brought it into being. While, on the contrary, a rational MIND presents us with the strongest and brightest image *, it is possible for a Creature to reflect of its Creator. It partakes of that divine virtue, the power of agency within itself. It has a capacity of imagination to turn its regard from the present, to the past anc! future ; an ability of judgment to examine and rectify the in formations of sense ; and a freedom of Will to give morality to all its thoughts and actions.
But besides this obvious superiority of Mind over Matter in the nature of their essences ; there is as sensible a difference in he ends of their Creation, or in the effects produced by the exertion of their several qualities. The material world was made but for the sake of the intellectual ; and consequently it is not to be supposed, that MORAL GOVERNMENT, which regards the end, should be neglected ; while NATURAL GOVERNMENT, which concerns only the means, should ingross the whole of the Ruler's at tention. With respect to the effects produced, Mind will, here again, have the same advantage; moral fitnesses having a greater intrinsic excellence than natural: for Matter being devoid of consciousness, the end of the Natural is only good effected ; while the end of the Moral is good felt and enjoyed.
Mind, therefore, cannot but engage the care of Providence ; which is confessed to superintend the movements of that Matter, whose combinations ul timately regard only mind and Intelligence.
* Gen. chap, i. ver. 26,
But
SERMON II. 39
But what makes fastidious reason so averse to the idea of God's moral government, when it so easily admits his Natural, is that in this latter case, systems are thought to be sustained and kept in order only hy the general laws of mechanism, impressed on Matter at its Creation ; or by certain powers lodged within it, to mold it into form, to push it into motion, and to give the true bias to its operations : so that here, the Deity works neither immediately nor particularly, but leaves every thing to the govern ment of those general Laws, or at least to the administration of that secondary power, or Plastic Nature, which superintends the execution of his Laws : while he himself, the sovereign Lord of Being, descends not from his high estate, nor suffers his supremacy to be degraded by a minute attend ance on every particle of body ; or polluted by an intimate contact with gross impure materiality. On the other hand, they see, moral government must be conducted on different principles, For its subject being free agency, and its object the direc tion of the effects which such an agency produceth, the attention of the Deity must be instant, in> mediate, and particular ; the relations of Master and Servant, of Lord and Subject, necessarily implying the most close and constant intimacy.
But what shall we say, if the indisposition to God's moral government, on account of this dif ference, be a mere prejudice? An indisposition not derived from Nature, but the false explanations of its phenomena, obtruded on us by vain system- makers ? Indeed, this supposed distance and separa-
p 4 tiou
40 S E R M O N II.
tion of the great Artist from his Work, after having once set the Machine a-going by the first impression of his general Laws, is the gratuitous conclusion of a talking Philosophy : The later, and more correct inquiries into the material system, on the unerring experience of the Newtonian physics, have clearly discovered, that God is intimately present to every particle of Matter, at every point of Space, and in every instance of Being. For a vis INERTIA, or resistance to the change of its present state, being an essential quality of Matter, and inconsistent with any motive, force, or power in that Substance, all those effects commonly ascribed to a certain essence residing in it, such as gravity, attraction, elasticity, repulsion, or whatever other tendencies to Motion are observed in Matter, are not powers naturally belonging to it, or what can possibly be made inherent in it. So that these qualities, without which, Matter would be utterly unfit for use, must needs be produced by the immediate influence of the first Cause, incessantly performing, by his almighty finger, the minutest office in the Material Economy ; working still near us, round us, within us, and in every part of us.
If, then, in the Natural government of the world, the immediate, the incessant influence of the workr man on his work in general, through all its systems up to the whole ; and, in particular, through all its lesser portions down even to the minutest atom, be necessary to enable Matter to perform its functions ; there is no reason to revolt against that close con nexion necessarily supposed between the Creator
and
SERMON II. 41
and Creature, in God's Moral government ; or to wonder that the order of Rationals should be honoured with the same immediate presence, the same degree of nearness and intimacy, with which the Godhead visits the whole inanimate creation.
II. Hitherto, we have endeavoured to affirm the reality of God's Moral government here below, by considerations drawn from the nature of the Creature. Let us now turn to the CREATOR ; and see if those things which human reason discovers of his ATTRIBUTES do not farther contribute to establish this important truth.
But we have been told, and with airs of superior knowledge, that these pretended attributes, as they are commonly specified, and distinguished into natural and moral, are a mere human fiction ; in vented, by aid of analogy, from the actions, passions, and qualities observable in man : And that the simple nature of Deity is one uniform perfection ; of which, infinity being the base, we can have no distinct idea or conception.
To this, it will be sufficient to reply, That it is indeed true, that these specific attributes, from which we deduce all our knowledge of the Nature and Will of God, are formed on analogy, and bear relation to ourselves. But then, we say, such attributes are not on that account the less real or essential. The light of the SUN is not in the orb itself what we see it in the RAINBOW. There it is one candid, uniform, perfect blaze of glory : flere, we separate its perfection, in the various
attributes
42 SERMON II.
attributes of red, yellow, blue, purple, and what else the subtile optician so nicely distinguishes.
But still, the solar-light is not less real in the rainbow, where its rays become thus untwisted, and each different thread distinctly seen, than while they remain united and incorporated with one another, in the Sun. Just so it is with the divine Nature: It is one simple individual perfection in the Godhead himself : But when refracted and divaricated, in passing through the human Mind, it becomes Power,, Justice, Mercy ; which are all separately and adequately represented to the Understanding.
I shall venture, therefore, to consider the divine perfection, as thus reduced and unfolded to human contemplation, under the name of Attributes, with out any fear of mistaking shadows for realities.
And here, I say, that the Natural attributes of the Deity, considered as Creator and Lord (and with these relations only, the Religionist has to do) may be comprised in those of POWER and WISDOM : His Moral, in those of JUSTICE and GOODNESS.
Now I hold, that though the idea of his natural attributes be. as clear, in the abstract, as that of his moral ; yet the idea of his moral attributes is, in the concrete, more adequate than that of his natural*.
The
* What is here said may enable us to form a proper judgment of the following censure. — " I would not say, " God governs by a rule, that we know, or may know, as " well as he, aqd upon our knowledge of which he appeals " to men for the justice of his proceedings towards them; " which a famous Divine hath impiously advanced in t( a pretended Demonstration of his being and attributes.
« God
SERMON II. 43
The reason seems convincing. The moral rela tion in which we stand to God, as free Agents, is just the same whether man exists alone, or whether lie hf but a i;'ik in the chain of innumerable orders of I •-. Jigjnces surrounding the whole Creation. Hen j "'j must n-jeds have a just and full knowledge
«' O
of onr i^ucy to aim, and of his disposition towards us : O ;> 'vliich knowledge i^ founded, the exactness of our conceptions of his Moral attributes, his jus- 'i [C« and GOODNESS. But the natural relation in which we, or any of God's creatures, stand towards him, as Material Bein^, is not the same, when con- sidere.l simply, as when a portion of a dependent air* connected ~»V'hole. Because, whenever such a Whole exists, the harmony and perfection of it must first of all be consulted. This harmony ariseth from the mutual subserviency and union of its parts. But this subserviency may require a ministration of government, with regard to certain portions of matter thus allied, different from what might have followed had those portions stood alone ; because that precise disposition, which might be fit in one case, might be
unfit
" God forbid ! But this I may say, that God does " always that which is FITTEST to be done. And that " this fitness, whereof neither that presumptuous dog- " matist was, nor any created being is, a competent tl Judge, results from the various natures and more various " relations of things. So that as Creator of ALL SYS- " TEMS, by which these natures and relations are con- " stitutedj he prescribed to himself the rule which he " follows, AS GOVERNOR OF EVERY SYSTEM oy " BEING." — Lord Bolingbroke's Idea of a Patriot Kin cr, printed 1749, p. 94,
44 S E R M O N II.
unfit in the other. Hence we who know there is a Whole, of which our material system is a part, and yet are totally ignorant both of its nature and extent, can have but a very confused idea of that physical relation in which we stand towards God. So that our conceptions of his natural Attributes, his POWER and WISDOM, which are founded on that idea, must, in the concrete, be proportion ably vague and inadequate.
Shall we, then, confide in that information which our less adequate ideas of God's power and wisdom afford us of his natural government ; and yet reject that which cur more adequate ideas of his justice and goodness give us of his moral government? We understand both, and rightly, as assuring us that he presides both in the one and in the other Economy. But let us not forget, that this informa tion is conveyed to us with very different degrees of clearness and precision. A difference, on the side of moral government above natural, in pro portion as our knowledge of God's moral attributes is less vague and inadequate than our knowledge of his natural,
III. Thus far from a separate consideration of the CREATOR and his WORKS. Let us see, in the last place, whether the same Truth may not be further supported from a joint view of BOTH of them together.
The idea of an immensely extended Universe tempts weak reason, deluded by sense ancl narrowed by prejudice, to suspect that this point of space, in
which
S E R M O N II. 45
•which man exists, may well escape a busied Ruler, who has innumerable Worlds upon his hands. We do not reflect, that the same reasoning, which leads us to conclude that a point of space may be over looked in God's providence, piercing through infinite extension, would lead us to conclude, that there may be points of time, throughout infinite duration, which likewise escaped his attention. Yet the ab surdity of this, we feel : Why not then of the other ? The reason is, because the portions of Time rise only in succession ; whereas all the parts of space exist together.
But this IMMENSITY, in which bewildered man considers himself as absorbed and lost, will, on due reflection, evince the very contrary to what it is brought to prove. Were Creation not thus widely extended, the infinity of its Author might perhaps seem less evident. And how far the influence or power of a Being not infinite might reach would be yet more uncertain. But a boundless creation shews its Author to be infinite : So that the remaining question concerning the extent of Providence will amount to this, Whether an infinite Being can ex tend his care to every the minutest portion of an Universe to which we can set no bounds. A ques tion which will hardly deserve an answer,
" But (say these objectors) the moral system wants one essential mark of divine superintendence, which is ORDER; and this the natural very eminently bears. The Sun keeps its first appointed station ; the Planets perform their accustomed revolutions ; each Element preserves its distinct properties ; and
all
46 SERMON IT.
all nature concurs to produce that harmony, with which things set out, when God honoured his rising Creation with the attribute of GOOD. But Man deflected early from his primeval righteouanoos, and felt the miseries of a depraved system ere he had fully tasted the blessings which flow from the recti tude of the Will, and from the even balance of the Affections. And what he so early lost, Time has never yet been able to restore ; so that he is likely to continue the same forlorn abandoned creature throughout the whole of his existence."
But these Objections are as vague as they are stale. We have been accustomed to talk at ran dom of the ORDER of natural things ; and we suffer ourselves to aggravate the DISORDERS of the Moral.
We can judge but very imperfectly of the whole of the material system. For how small is the portion of Body objected to our view ! and how fleeting the period of time allotted for our study !
We see indeed, perpetual peace and concord in our own solar World; but we know little of the astral systems, innumerable and remote. And the little we do know gives cause of suspicion that all there is not so regular and constant, as analogy to what we find here, would tempt us to conclude. New stars have suddenly shone out ; and have as suddenly disappeared: Phenomena, which look either like eccentric starts in the Courses of those bodies, or destructive revolutions in their Natures. Nor are we without some appearances in OUR OWN System, to give countenance to these suspicions in the more 22 remote.
SERMON II. 47
remote. Perhaps the Ring of Saturn may be no other than a less irregular fragment of a crushed and broken Globe. The wounds, our own Earth hath formerly received, are yet deep and ghastly ; which -though skinned over by time and human cul ture, are seen, by those who pry the least beyond its surface, to bear all the marks and memory of a ruined world.
But to turn from these supposed flaws and maims in some of the parts, to the acknowledged perfections of the general System. Its order and harmony, it must be owned, speak most fully to the sustaining power of its Lord and Master : yet those who have penetrated deepest into its mysteries *, have dis covered rooted evils and "growing disorders, scarce sensible, indeed, at present, but what, in time, and without the intervening hand of its Maker, will render the frame of nature altogether unfit for the purposes of its. general destination.
It is true, it may be said, " That these proceed slowly and insensibly, while moral disorders infect at once, and rush like a torrent over the fair bosom of Creation."
The thing perhaps is too true : but the inference
— " While Comets move in very eccentric orbs in
" all manner of positions, blind fate could never make
' all the planets move one and the same way in orbs
concentric; some inconsiderable irregularities excepted,
which maij have arisen from the mutual actions of Comets
and Planets upon one another ; and zohich will be apt to
'' increase till this system wants a reformation:' Newton's
Opt. 4th edit. p. 378.
48 S E R M O N II.
is unjust. This difference is not to be ascribed to a contrary conduct in the Governor, but to the contrary natures of the subjects.
Passive Matter being totally inert, its resistance to the Laws impressed upon it must be extremely weak : and consequently the disorders arising from that resistance, proportionably slow and unheeded : \vhile that active self-moving principle, the Mind, flies out at once from the centre of its direction, and can, every moment, deflect from the line of truth and reason. Hence moral disorders began early, became presently excessive, and have continued through all ages to disturb the harmony of the System.
Nor are the different methods employed by Providence, for the reform of either system, less distinguishable, than the different qualities of Mind and Matter, which occasioned so wide a distance in the progress of their several disorders : as may be seen by comparing them together. From whence it will appear that the disorder and the reform of that disorder, in either subject, are wisely proportioned to one another.
When the inertness of MATTER hath occasioned irregularities in the corporeal system, it hath no ability in itself to redress them. They mus't go on, though slowly, from bad to worse, till disabled nature calls upon the hand of God for an extraordinary reformation.
But MIND, is ever applying remedies to its own distempers. First, by the check put to them by the stimulation of opposite passions and affections j for
the
S E R M O N II. 49
the appetites are incessantly defeating one another's natural tendencies, and perpetually producing con trary effects. So avarice restrains luxury ; self- interest withholds injustice; and sloth quenches ambition: So revenge and hatred procure public justice ; treachery often prevents a national destruc tion ; and envy and opposition to power produces a sage and cautious administration.
Thus the jarring interests of corrupt passion keep moral evil within moderate bounds, and give time and opportunity to the mind to recover the govern ment and direction of itself; in the regulation of the appetites and reformation of the will : And this is the second way the mind has of procuring remedies for its own distempers.
In these different methods of reforming; either system, the divine goodness is equally displayed ; only his power is more visibly exercised in the one, and his wisdom in the other. When blind Matter deviates, as nothing but the conducting hand of God can bring her back into the road of Nature, so the force attending that reduction is so for from impairing her essential virtue, that it heals and restores it. But the like intervention with a rational Agent would impinge upon his freedom. God has therefore so admirably contrived, in the disposition of his moral System, that it should be able to restore itself; by making its very disorders contribute to its reform, in the check the vitious passions give to one another's operations ; and in the opportunities with which time supplies the Mind, to assume its native sovereignty, for the carrying on the reformation.
VOL. IX. K Thus
50 SERMON II.
Thus we see God's government in morals becomes as conspicuous as in natural things : For, the dis posing causes and effects in such a manner as to make vice defeat its own end, no less manifests the attention of infinite wisdom, than the aiding matter to produce its proper destination, is fitted to display, infinite power.
But to perceive the force of what is here said, we must remember, that moral government consists of TWO PARTS; The one, a Provision to prevent evil, and to support good ; The other, a destination of reward and punishment, assigned in due proportions to the agents of either : Our subject concerns the first part only : The second is to be explained on other principles ; and is not within the limits of this Discourse.
To conclude, The sober inquirer will not be dis pleased to find at length, that the objections to God's moral Government spring from the weakness of our faculties, and the prejudices attending our situation ; joined to a corrupt vanity which makes human reason the measure of all things : and that this Philosophy, which bears such a shew of inlarged and superior knowledge, stands on the narrow bottom of ignorance, and as it rises in vanity, increases in absurdity.
To HUMBLE HUMAN REASON is the work of true Religion, and, if not the end, is always the issue, of sound Philosophy : but to DEBASE HUMAN NATURE is the low aim of impiety, and the darling project of corrupt manners. Providence laid open the knowledge of his works to excite our gratitude, 1 9 and
SERMON II. 51
and strengthen our attachment to their Author. What the philosopher said of the knowledge of ourselves, may be well applied to the knowledge of the universe. " Let us not imagine it was given merely to humble human arrogance : One great purpose of it was to impress upon our hearts a sense of the divine goodness towards man *." To turn this knowledge, therefore, to a brutal debasement of our nature, or a philosophic oblivion of our Lord and Master, is the lowest depravity of an intelligent Being. In a word, if reason and piety have no weight, let natural shame deter us, when we can never merit this distinction, at least from dishonour ing the grace by irreverent cavils at the dispensation.
* Illud yvuQt o-savrov noli putare ad arrogantiam minu- endam solum esse dictum, verum etiam ut bona nostra norimus. Cic.
E '2
SERMON III.
THE LOVE OF GOD AND MAN. i Ep. JOHN iv. ver. 20.
IF A MAN SAY, I LOVE GQD, AND HATETII HIS BROTHER, HE IS A LIAR : FOR HE THAT LOVETH NOT HIS BROTHER, WHOM HE HATH SEEN, HOW CAN HE LOVE GOD, WHOM HE HATH NOT
SEEN ?
THE superior excellence of the Gospel morality above all other summaries of human conduct, whether preached up as a RELIGION by Priests ; inforced for LAW by the founders of Society; or recommended under the name of PHILOSOPHY by the Masters of wisdom ; is now so generally seen and acknowledged, that even the enemies of Revela tion have been forced to confess, It is as well in perfection as in purity, as well in public use as in private, truly worthy the original it assumes.
An advantage which the Ministers of our holy Religion have, with great judgment, taken all occa sions to inforce, and with equal solidity to explain.
J3ut there is another circumstance in this divine E 3 economy,
54 SERMON III.
economy, which carries the honour of it still higher, as directly tending to prove, That the Gospel morality which is so worthy of God3 had, in truth, God for its immediate Author. And this perhaps may not have been insisted on with the frequency and attention which so important a matter seems to require.
The circumstance I mean is, that profound and enlarged knowledge of human nature, which the Apostles discover in their manner of recommending moral duties. In this dispensation, these weak and foolish instruments, in the hand of Providence, have foiled and disgraced the boasted wisdom of Greece and Rome ; and in that very way wherein their wisdom most excelled ; in short and detached pre cepts, composed for the conduct of human life by men studious to reduce their long laborious searches after happiness into weighty and com pendious aphorisms *.
But before I proceed to explain the words of my text, which afford so illustrious an example of this truth, I shall consider, in general, the occasion of them.
The life, the spirit of Christian Religion is universal benevolence. Agreeably to this, we may observe, That the first founders of the Churches, let the occasion be what it would, whatever Discipline they established, whatever Doctrine they inforced, what ever vice or Heresy they stigmatized, or whatever grace or virtue they recommended, CHARITY was the thing still present with them, and always in
Plat, in Protag.
their
SERMON III. 55
their care. Charity, the bond of perfectness, the end of the commandment ; that etherial principle, which, like the elastic fluid of the Philosophers, animates, connects, and ennobles the whole System of intelligent nature.
The beloved Disciple of our Lord particularly, who may be well supposed to know his Master's will, seems to have written the Epistle, from whence I take my text, with no other design than to recom mend this first of Virtues, CHARITY : at a season too, when, as Heresies were springing up apace, some modern Theologists would be apt to think he mi^ht have employed his time and talents to more advantage. And indeed one might ask, and scarce absurdly, why so very much upon Charity, in an age when the followers of the Lamb had so few induce ments to pollute it ? For the Faith being yet chaste from the prostitutions of the Schools, and the Hierarchy uncorrupted by the gifts of Constantine, the Church laboured neither under Bigotry nor Ambition, the two fatal incentives of uncharitable ZeaL But the reply is easy. It was the providence of that prophetic spirit which set before them the image of those miserable times, When Iniquity should abound, and the love of many should wax cold: and they were willing to bear witness, and to record their testimony against the future violators of the bond of perfectness. For I can by no means enter into the refinements of him who discovered that Jesus and his followers might preach up love and charity the better to enable a set of Church politicians, some ages after, to tyrannize over
E 4 those
50 SERMON III.
those whom the engaging sounds of benevolence and brotherly love had intrapped into obedience *. Besides, this is not delivered like a temporary direction : it is not barely recommended : the reason, on which it stands, is given with it; a reason founded in the nature of things, and supported by the very order of Providence. If a man say, 1 love Gad, ami hateth his Brother, he is a liar : for lie that lovcth not his Brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen? An argument, which, for its unaffected
* " Terrors alone, though accompanied with miracles " and prodigies of whatever kind, are not capable of " raising that sincere faith and absolute reliance which " is required in favour of the divinely authorised Instruc- " tor and spiritual Chief. The affection and love which " procures a true adherence to the new religious foun- " dation, must depend either on a real or counterfeit " goodness in the religious founder. Whatever ambitious " spirit may Inspire him ; whatever savage zeal or per- " scouting principle may lye in reserve, ready to disclose " itself when authority and power is once obtained ; the ' first scene of doctrine, however, fails not to present 1 us with the agreeable views of Joy, love, meekness, " gentleness, and moderation. — Charity and Brotherly, " love are very engaging sounds ; but who would dream " that out of abundant Charity and brotherly love should " come steel, fire, gibbets, rods, &c." Characteristics, vol. iii. p. 114, 115, cd. 4th. But the general premises are as false as the particular inference is absurd. Ma homet did raise that sincere faith and absolute reliance, amongst his followers, by terrors alone, and without that affection and lore employed bv the founder of Chris tianity.
simplicity^
SERMON III. 57
simplicity, a modish Freethinker will be tempted to despise ; and yet would pretend to admire, had it come from Plato or Cicero.
But some, perhaps, may like the reasoning not the worse for its being evangelical : and such will bear with me while I attempt to illustrate its superior force and beauty.
The Argument is founded in the true theory of the RISE and PROGRESS of the SOCIAL AFFECTIONS ; of which the following account may afford us some im perfect notion.
An endeavour to preserve its Being makes part of the essential constitution of every created thing. Hence, in the Inanimate, a resistance to outward force; in the Animate, a pursuit or an abhor rence of what is helpful or hurtful ; and, in Alan, that first and strongest passion of his nature, SELF- LOVE; from whence all the other appetites derive their force, and to which they direct their aim. Its use is to assist the heart to awaken Virtue, and to push out and develope the great principle of BENEVOLENCE.
It is true, indeed, that Benevolence, arising from this source, at first runs thick and turbid ; but, as it holds its way, it refines; it purifies and expands its current, till it hath lost all memory of its low original.
For the passion of self-love, aided by the kindred appetite of NATURAL AFFECTION, soon makes art effort to move outward ; and looking forward with an instinctive tenderness on our offspring, it is taught to turn its regard, as far back, with rational gratitude
on
58 SERMON III.
on our Parents. And though the former be loving ourselves as represented in others ; and the latter, only loving others as represented in ourselves ; yet the principle of Benevolence being now awakened, it begins, from this moment, to desert its origine : it extends itself to our remoter relatives ; and, in a little time, takes in every connexion of domestic life. And, thus continuing to enlarge and widen, by such time as it irows impatient of restraint, the wants and reliefs, the services and protection, which exer cise its virtue in this inferior state, enable it to form ideas oi a nobler Community, and to trace the out lines and image of a SOCIETY. This produceth another effort, and of a more exalted kind ; the ob ject of benevolence being no longer an INDIVIDUAL, but a WHOLE.
From tiiis time the social passions make large ad vances ; and Benevolence, improved and strengthened even by the selfish sense of mutual wants, and the experienced means of mutual relief, extends its in fluence and efficacy through the whole community of those who need, or can impart, assistance : and thus, on the natural plan of domestic connexions, erects that artificial regimen called Civil society. So that, as before, Benevolence advanced from par ticular to general ; it now riseth still higher, from PRIVATE to PUBLIC. And thus, having a Com munity for its object, it wins and truly deserves its name : Self-love being now absorbed in the noblest of ail social passions, THE LOVE OF ouu COUNTRY ; which the Roman Patriot, in a philoso phic analysis of its generation and constituent parts,
rightly
SERMON III. 59
rightly defines to be that which " includes all other social affections*."
Thus doth SELF-LOVE, under the varying appearance of natural affection, domestic relation, and the connexions of social habitude, at first work blindly on, obscure and deep in dirt; but, as it makes its way, it continues rising, till it emerges into light; and then, suddenly expiring, leaves behind it the fairest issue ; which, nobly forgetful of its low- beginning, advances on the steps of Virtue, till it reaches to RELIGION.
For the interests of mere animal life being well se cured in this first progress to Benevolence ; the Mind, which hitherto only cared for the Body, begins to make provision for itself ; and, having laid in for the others wants and weakness, attends, in good time, to its own superior dignity and importance.
And now, placed on so fair an eminence, as the LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY, and its sight purged and defecated from the gross remains of evanescent Self- love, it goes on widening its views, till it hath taken in the whole race of Mankind ; considered but as one Policy, or rather, FAMILY; connected by the equal participation of one common nature ; and sup ported by the consequent right of one common measure ; and therefore the endeared object of one general benevolence.
Thus DOMESTIC life, which first produced Civil society, and then gave birth to this more generous
* Chari sunt Parentes, chari Liberi, Propinfjui, Fami- U fires: sed omnes omnium Charitates P ATRIA una com- plexa est. Cic.
and
60 SERMON III.
and enlarged community, at length brings Benevo lence round again into itself as to its full and final completion, by drawing the whole race of mankind into one common FAMILY.
But, in die course of this progress, the Mind, as it widens, becoming fatigued and dazzled by its in tense solicitation of this growing Whole, hath fre^ quent need, at its several stages, to catch at and to rest in partial objects.
Hence tie origine of FRIENDSHIP *, the solace and splendor of private life ; which, while we are advancing towards that only adequate object of hu-
* " Private Friendship,, and Zeal for the Public and " our Country, are virtues purely voluntary in a Christian. " They- are no essential parts of his CHARITY. He is not " so' tied to the affairs of this life ; nor is he obliged to " enter into such engagements with this lower world, as " are of no help to him in acquiring a better." Charac teristics, 4th. ed. vol. i. p. 98, 99. The Philosophy of this remark is like the candour. For if (as we shall now see) no one can acquire the love of God without having love or benevolence to man; so neither can this benevolence (which certainly is not a virtue purely voluntary in a Chris tian) be acquired, without having had private Friendship and zeal for the Public and our Country. The reason is the same in both cases : the road to the more general stages of benevolence lying, all the way, through the more particular. Engagements, therefore, with this lower world, (to use the language of the noble Writer) are (contrary to his conclusion) of great help to us in acquiring a better. — But when Christian Charity had been represented as not springing from Virtue, it was no such bold abuse of the public indulgence to endeavour to persuade us, that the Christian Faith is not founded in Argument.
SERMON III. 61
tiian attachment, a Whole, teacheth us by tlie way all our journalary duties to Particulars.
Having thus endeavoured to explain how all the virtues of humanity arise, and have their source, from the gradual expansion of the great principle of Benevolence : we come, in the next place, to con sider, how, in its further advances to perfection, RELIGION itself emergeth from it.
In all the objects of love and benevolence, the at tractive quality is GOOD. And this connexion being made by the nature and constitution of things, the greater the apparent good, the stronger must the passion grow. Now when the whole human race is considered by us as the object of our love ; The steps by which we, are led to this high advance in benevo lence, such as Man's origine, his common nature, and the dependence of the happiness of the individual on the species, carry us naturally higher ; to seek the first cause of so orderly and well-regulated an effect. An inquiry, which terminates in the Author of this, and of all other good : Whom, as such, we are forcibly drawn to pursue, and to aspire after; and in the contemplation of whose nature and attri butes we find at last the SUPREME AND SOVEREIGN GOOD : from whence, as we say, all other good ariseth, and in which they are all contained. HE, therefore, challenged our supreme and sovereign love ; which never ceaseth to advance and enlarge itself, till it end in an UNION with him.
And thus the last great effort of benevolence pro- xhiceth what we call, RELIGIQN ; whose end all agree to be HAPPINESS.
62 SERMON III.
This is the true account of the rise and progress of UNIVERSAL LOVE : which, as it regards man, our holy faith calls CHARITY ; as it regards God, PIETY.
But there were in the apostolic times, and will be in all times, a sort of men who are for catching at the rewards of faith without undergoing this long, but pleasing labour of love ; and whose frantic aim is to make a sacrilegious divorce between Charity and Piety. These men assume to themselves great merit in loving God, while they treat their Brother with contempt and cruelty. But what says the Apostle, in my text ? Provoked at their hypocrisy, he strips off the mask, and brands them with the odious name of LIARS: a name, in Scripture language, of the most opprobrious import; as given to impostors of all kinds ; and implying in it every thing corrupt both in moral and religious practice. If a man (says St. John) say, I love God, and hatelh his Brother, he is a liar: For he that loveth not his Brother, whom he hath seen, how can he, (ove God, whom he hath not seen ? The force and beauty of which reasoning, the foregoing account, of the rise and progress of Benevolence, will enable us to understand.
" You pretend, says the Apostle, to love God, though you hate your Brother. Vain and fallacious ! The love of every object begins, like all our other passions, from self-love : Thus we love ourselves, by repre sentation, in our Parents, and in our Offspring : it extends to our remoter relatives ; and so on, through the whole vicinage, to every fellow-member of the Community. And now, self-love refined by reason,
and
SERMON III. 63
and sublimed by virtue, begins to lose its nature, and deservedly to take another name. Our Country next claims our love : we then extend it to all Mankind ; and never rest till we have, at length, fixed it on the most amiable of all objects, the great Author and Original of Being.
This is the course and progress of HUMAN LOVE ; gradually rising from the individual to the whole : as unlike, in its progress as in its purity, to the DIVINE BENEVOLENCE ; which, in gracious aid of its Creatures, takes a different course : for, spring ing from the Whole, it spreads and expands itself through every moral system, till it clasps and embraces the Individual.
And now (pursues the Apostle) I reason thus : Can you, mistaken man ! who are not yet arrived at that inferior stage of benevolence, the love of your Brother, whom you hare seen, that is, whom the sense of mutual wants, and the experience of mutual relief, amongst the joint partakers of one common nature, might teach you to love, can you pretend to have attained the top and summit of this virtue, the love of God, whom you have not seen, that is, whose wonderful economy, in the system of creation and government, which makes him so amiable, you appear to have no conception of; You, who have not yet learnt, that your own low system is supported on the great principle of be nevolence. Fear him, flatter him, fight for him, as you blindly dread his power, you may: But, to love him, as you know not his nature, is im possible."
This
64 SERMON III.
This is St. John's simple reasoning. From whence I conclude for tho divinity of that Spirit which could infuse so much sublime knowledge into the pen of a rude unlettered fisherman.
Nor does it less recommend the excellence of our holy Religion than the wisdom of this its Minister : for what could give us a higher idea of Christianity than its making the love of man the previous step, the only way of acquiring, that happy frame of mind, divinely tempered with the love of God ; which fits us for what is the end and completion of all religion, the possession of his Spirit ?
But this doctrine, which explains the connexion between the love of God find man, has still a further use. It keeps our holy Faith pure from SUPER STITION, BIGOTRY, and FANATICISM : the three worst dishonours to which Religion is exposed.
1. For DIVINE LOVE thus produced, and rising on the knowledge of God's nature, will keep religious worship free of SUPERSTITION, will preserve it from all barbarous and abject ceremonies ; and from all selfish and uncharitable devotion. It will remove from God's service all slavish dread of his anger for the neglect of actions indifferent ; and all childish hope of atoning for violated morality by the performance of others, equally indifferent.
2. THIS LOVE, standing on the foundation of human benevolence, whose object is God's rational creation, will exclude all the BIGOTRY of false Zeal, which, for God's sake, is ever ready to desolate the
earth,
SERMON III. 65
earth. For now, no one can be so absurd to imagine, that the means of perfecting the fruit of faith, which is the love of God, is by shaking the root of charity, benevolence to man. I am aware, how cer tain propagators of the Faith, sometimes the despi cable tools of others' impotency, but as often the viler slaves of their own ambition, have endeavoured to hide their corrupt passions under the thin cover ing of a School-distinction. While they would persuade us, that it is pure charity to man which thus factiously engages them in, what they call THE CAUSE OF GOD: and that what plain honest men style a want of Charity, when they insult the fame, the fortune, or the person of their Brother, is the very height of this princely virtue, a Charity for his soul — So, indeed, it may be of the Hangman's Charity, who waits for your Clothes. But St. John's, or St. Paul's, it could not be. It could not be that Charity which was not easily provoked, which thought no evil ; bore all things, hoped all things, believed all things. A Charity, which begins in candor, in spires good opinion, and rests in the temporal wel fare of our Brother.
3. But the deceitfulness of the heart is ingenious in expedients to elude the commandments of God. And when Bigotry, by its coarse and butcherly viola tions of Charity, hath sufficiently discredited its own measures, FANATICISM, with equal rage, though with somewhat a milder aspect, steps in to divest us of our humanity, under pretence, to assimilate it to the divine nature, by annihilating all love of the Creature,
VOL. IX. F and
66 SERMON III.
and resolving every other affection into the pure un mixed love of God ; as if the least portion of bene volence, communicated to our Brother, was a rob bery to our Maker. The fumes of spiritual madness disable these men from seeing so far into the order of things as to understand, that till we can throw off the condition of related Beings, as well as the passion of humanity which results from it, our fellow-crea tures will always have a claim to our benevolence. In compassion therefore to such, Holy Scripture has provided a still easier instruction than this negative precept of rny text, by the addition ot the positive command, THAT HE WHO LOVETH GOD, LOVE HIS BROTHER ALSO*.
Such then is the Religion which Jesus came into the world to teach. Whose foundation being laid in the love of our Brother, provides for our peace and consolation here; and whose superstructure termi nating in the love of God, secures and establishes our happiness hereafter.
* i John iv. 21.
SERMON IV.
THE LOVE OF GOD AND MAN, PROVERBS xvii. ver. 5.
WHOSO MOCKETH THE POOR REPROACHETH HIS MAKER.
OF all the truths, for the direction of our conduct, with which this royal treasury of ancient wis dom abounds, there is none fuller either of profitable use or profound science than this contained in my text ; which so severely censures all expressions of contempt towards those whom Providence has thrown below us on the distressful stage of human life.
And, as we must first clear our corrupt nature from this rankness, before we can attempt to cultivate that immortal amarant of Paradise, Christian love and benevolence ; it may not be improper to shew the reason and explain the use of the WISE MAN'S divine aphorism, Whoso mocketli the Poor reproach- tth his Maker. As much as to say, " He who maketh the Poor the object of his contempt and ridicule, on account of those disastrous circumstances
F a which
68 SERMON IV.
which attend the want of the goods of fortune, tacitly condemns and reproaches the wise and gracious order of Providence."
But it may not be amiss, previously to consider, In what state it is, that man becomes the object of this criminal mockery to his fellow- creature. It is plain, it cannot be in that where he lives uncivilized. For there, the distinctions between RICH and POOR, whereon the insolence of wealth formeth those odious comparisons, which conclude in the contempt of penury, have hardly any place; that sordid condition, which, now contrasted to pomp and gran deur, is become the subject of opulent scorn, being there so general as to admit no room for an unfavourable distinction : But, an universal parity, like darkness, blots out all difference between honourable and mean. Nay, should the civilized beholder be disposed to regard with contempt the wants and miseries of this state, it would not be the criminal contempt forbidden in my text : because the state of nature is not that in which Providence intended we should remain ; as appears by the large assistance imparted to us, to free ourselves from the distresses of it. So that if, by a shameful indolence, man should neglect to improve those advantages, the sordid circumstances, inseparable from an un civilized condition, would have no claim to be exempted from scorn and mockery : and, conse quently, however CHARITY might suffer, PRO* VIDENCE was not insulted.
It is only in SOCIETY, therefore, that the Poor become subject to this outrage. And, in this state
only.
S E R M O N IV. 69
only, the outrage becomes IMPIETY. For Civil regimen, by inventing and improving the accom modations of life, and by securing, to the owner, what is so invented and improved, changeth the natural equality of conditions amongst men ; and introduceth that invidious distinction of POOR and RICH ; made far more bitter from the insolence of Wealth, than the envious longings of Poverty. For it is the vicious caprice of Riches to be impatient under a rivalship in the advantages of fortune, and yet, at the same time, insensible to the distresses, and contemptuous to the condition of those who have never striven with them for any of those advantages.
So that there is no circumstance in the distresses of want, but what insulting wealth can make the subject of its mockery. To some, their narrow- Minds, their gross conceptions, their unimproved talents, are fruitful sources of contempt and merri ment. Others, who cannot rise so high in their discoveries, can yet find matter of mirth in their impropriety of phrase, their unpolished manners, their ill air, and unformed figure. Nay to such excess of corruption have unbiest Riches brought their possessors, that some can make that very SORDIDNESS itself, that miserable cloathing of poverty, a subject for their scorn and ridicule. So that whether it be for want of those advantages of mind and person which their poverty disabled them from procuring, or whether it be for that very poverty itself, they are sure never to escape the inhumanity of unfeeling wealth.
F 3 But
?o SERMON IV.
But how highly criminal these insults are, my text now leads me to consider.
As Society is the only means of procuring the accommodations, and preserving the dignity, of our animal and reasonable nature ; and as this nature is endowed with appetites and qualities which make it seek, and fit it for SOCIETY ; we must needs conclude, Society to be, what Scripture informs us it is, THE ORDINANCE OF GOD. Now it is essential to this Society, that the goods of fortune be unequally distributed ; To the end, that some be goaded on by want to seek their relief in new inventions and improvements, which, tending to the better com modity of life, are objective to the public good ; and that others be enabled by abundance, and disposed by the love of ease and pleasure, to promote and encourage those endeavours. For were the goods of fortune to be equally divided, such a distribution would soon return us to the state of unimproved nature, by taking off those spurs to industry, the rewards attending the improve ments of social life.
Again, as an unequal distribution was required to answer the ends of civil community, so the various tempers, talents, and appetites of men were admirably fitted to introduce, and framed to per petuate this inequality.
Hence, we conclude, That these different stations in Society were marked out and disposed by the peculiar ordinance of Providence : For He, who desrees the end, must needs be supposed to direct the means conducive to it.
But
SERMON IV. 71
But admitting this to be the case, it must needs follow, that he who makes any of these conditions of life the subject of his scorn and mockery, reproaches the justice and goodness of the Director of the system. For that man can never be said to be treated with a common degree of goodness, who is thrust into such a station as makes him the object of reasonable contempt to his fellow- creature ; a creature of the same species, and who has no imaginable pretensions to better treatment from the justice of their common Master.
We must needs, therefore, subscribe to the doc trine of the text, That no greater insult can be offered to the wisdom, the justice, or the goodness of God, than by looking down with despite and mockery on the poverty of our distressed brethren.
Yet vile as this mockery is, the frequent practice hath made it so unheeded, that we see it committed daily without suffering ourselves to be affected with that aversion and abhorrence, so justly due unto it. Hence the serious admonition of the wise man ; who, the better to assist our humanity in the free exercise of its natural feelings, awakens religion, by branding the vice as an IMPIETY : in every deliberate act of which is comprised all that is most criminal in our degenerate and corrupt nature.
This species of impiety in particular, contains the basest INGRATITUDE towards God, and IN HU MANITY to our Brother : Which, including the violation of all our relations as reasonable creatares, sinks us below the very beasts themselves.
F 4 And
72 SERMON IV.
And can there be a worse ingratitude towards the great Disposer of all things, than for man to make any station in Society the object of his contempt ? Society, which God himself ordained for the ad vancement of human happiness ! and which can be only procured by means of those various degrees and subordinations, productive of that condition, which we impiously make the matter of our scorn. Is this a fitting return for the care and kindness of that Master, who drew us from a state of savages, who led us to a life of civility, and hath put it in our power to improve the blessings of Providence, and the endowments of reason, most suitably to the dignity of our nature !
We may reflect, likewise, that we, who thus offend, do by the peculiar indulgence of Heaven, reap all the benefit of Society ; while those we injure are so circumstanced as to bear all the inclemencies and hardships of it ; a burthen, which weighs the heavier on them, as it is borne alone. And yet if we look into ourselves and them, and compare what we find on either part, we shall discover nothing which could dispose the righteous Judge of all the earth to decree a state of ease and affluence for us, and con demn them to indigence and labour. Nay, were we not blinded by self-love, we should soon find, in this despised quarter, men whose understandings and honesty, whose piety and diligence, whose care and affection for their families, whose conscientious submission and obedience to authority, might well enable them to dispute, and qualify them to carry the station of honour, from their Betters.
But
S E R M O N IV. 73
But -how detestable must this ingratitude appear, when we reflect further, That these low stations, the object of our scorn, were ordained for no other civil purpose than to support us in that distinction of abundance, from the wanton abuse of which arises all this guilt of contempt which so justly subjects the offender to God's righteous judgment. So that we carry our impiety to such a height, when we mock the poor, that we even reproach our Maker with the very blessings which, at their ex pence, he heaps upon ourselves.
And this leads me to the second point, the INHU MANITY to our Brethren. Indeed the very con siderations, which upbraid our ingratitude to our Maker, expose our inhumanity to the Poor. For can any thing be more inhumane than, when the stations of Society are thus necessarily unequal, and when Providence has thrown our lot amongst the
o
few who reap in ease the accommodations of it, at the expence of multitudes, who had as good a claim to that distinction ; Can any thing, I say, be more inhumane than to treat their less happy condition with outrage and contempt ? A condition, from which no superiority of nature, no advantage of intellectual, or merit of moral endowments, nothing but the established order of things, hath exempted us,' or subjected them.
If to this, we add (as hath been just observed), that their low condition was established to support us in the proud distinction of abundance, it must greatly inflame our guilt, and increase our confusion. For
to
74 SERMON IV.
to rhe Poor it is, that we are immediately, and* almost solely, indebted for every advantage of ease and pleasure, which improved and refined society affords (advantages which we are but too apt to esteem the principal blessings of society); it being by their in cessant toil that the elegancies of polite and fashion able life are procured for us. While all the reward TLey have, for becoming benefactors to the Great and Wealthy, is but the hard and scanty sustenance of a miserable Being. A Being only less miserable than That, which the insolent Rich-man himself must have been content to drag, in a life unassisted by the sweat and ingenuity of the Labourer and Artificer. For were it not for the incessant drudgery of the Poor, we should soon be brought back a^ain, even amidst our largest accumulations of fortune, to a condition of distress which would soon wipe out all that odious circumstance of insolent comparison, from whence arises this mean, this vile, this unmanly contempt for the lower stations of our fellow- citizens.
But what is alone sufficient to strike us with horror at so wretched an inhumanity, is the consideration of those numerous disorders of body, those Maladies, to which a restless application of all their faculties for the stipplial of our imaginary, and therefore endless wants, perpetually subjects the industrious Poor. How, by toiling in pursuit of commodities, they themselves are never to enjoy, Some are confined to the pestilential damps of mines; and Others exposed to the rage of elementary, and solar fires : These doomed to struggle with the various inclemencies of distempered air : and Those, to
undergo
SERMON IV. 75
undergo the rotten vapours of fenny waters, or the corrosive humidity of the ocean : Here a too seden tary occupation viciates the torpid fluids : and there, a too violent destroys the overstretched tone of the solids : The baleful materials employed, or worked upon, often strike the artist with acute distempers ; and the manner or method of working as often draws on chronical : so that the shop of the artificer may be truly called the Warehouse of Death. The maladies, which swarm so thick and constant in it, have even afforded matter for the charitable Phy sician to compose distinct works of the Diseases of Artificers * : Where we find the distempers of each Labourer to be as numerous as the Tools he works with \ and as peculiar as the materials he employs.
Such then is the nature of the crime so severely condemned in my text ; and such the circumstances which so deeply aggravate it. The serious con sideration of these things will be abundantly sufficient to confound the pride of Opulence, and shame the Rich man into those duties to God and his Brother, which his STATION more indispensably requires ; that very circumstance which, to the dishonour of human nature, he hath suffered to mislead him into so scandalous a violation of both.
This salutary humiliation will lead him easily back into the road of Piety and Charity. He will grow warm with gratitude to his Maker , and soften with
* Bernardini Ramazini De morbis Artificum.
compassion
76 S E R M O N IV.
compassion for his brother. But gratitude and compassion, which stop at acknowledgments and commiseration, are as great an insult on God and Man, as that more open mockery condemned in my text.
The only acceptable way, of testifying our re pentance, in an impious age so forward to cavil at the ordinance of Providence, is to discharge those duties which have a natural tendency to vindicate its ways. God hath given us every encouragement, to perform them. He hath put it in the power even of miserable man, and how great is that honour ! to justify the economy of his system : For the faith ful discharge of what our various relations to our Fellow-creatures require of us, will repair all those deformities of defect and excess, which nature or fortune is for ever casting over the fair face of Creation. For what is it (in the opinion of impious men) that so greatly discredits the dispensations of Providence, but that state of misery to which the bulk of mankind is condemned, in order to support the Few in the full tide of wantonness and riot ? Would the Rich once begin to think themselves the dispensators of Providence for the Poor, Impiety would soon be forced to confess, that the goods of fortune, though unequally divided, \\ereyet wisely and graciously administered : All men would see, that the pouring down wealth on l.igh stations was only a sacred deposite to supply the wants and distresses of the low : Wants very wisely imposed, as a necessary means of producing those accommodations which Man's improved nature indispensably requires.
This,
SERMON IV. 77
This, and this only, can atone for the enormity condemned in my text. This will support the Order, and is consequently the best vindication of the Economy, of Providence ; which wants nothing to render it as respectable to the world, as it is illustrious in itself, but this reasonable compliance to the common dictates of Humanity and Religion.
SERMON .V.
THE CHARACTER AND OFFICE OF THE
MESSIAH.
1 COR. i. 30.
JESUS CHRIST, WHO OF GOD IS MADE UNTO US WISDOM, AND RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND SANO TIFICATION, AND REDEMPTION.
IN these memorable words, the Apostle, Paul, hath given us a full and exact Character of the Personage of the holy JESUS, and of the nature of that Religion he was sent to propagate amongst Men.
Wisdom and Righteousness describe a MESSENGER sent from God with the publication of the eternal Law of Truth and Right : and Sanctification and Redemption denote the MESSIAH foretold, who was to atone for man's transgressions, and to restore him to his lost Inheritance.
These two important matters, the first of which respects the WORKER ; and the second, his WORK ; I propose to make the subject of the following Discourse.
I. The
8o S E R M O N V.
I. The Jews, at the time of Christ's advent, were in full expectation of their long promised Messiah. So that St. John tells us, the multitude on their being miraculously fed by Jesus, cried out, this is of a truth that PROPHET that should come into the world*. And indeed, this judgment was such a one as the People are generally wont to pass; crude, undigested, and made up of a mixture of truth and falsehood. It was true, and they argued rightly, that the worker of this miracle was a PROPHET SENT from God. But it was false, and they were too hasty in concluding, that This was the proper proof of his being the PROPHET FORETOLD in their sacred volumes. For though one of the marks of this Prophet (as it must be one of every messenger sent immediately from God), was the working Miracles ; yet there were many other circumstances, respecting both his time and person, which were to unite in that Character, before he could be said, to be, of a truth) that Prophet that should come into the world.
This, therefore, on the whole, must pass for a popular prejudice in favour of the Son of God ; but yet a Prejudice : Less unreasonable, indeed, than many, they presumed to entertain against him : As when they thought an idle Proverb sufficient to controvert the strongest evidence of his Messiah- character. Can any thing good come out of Nazareth, saith Nathanael, an Israelite in whom there was no guile f, but, as appears from hence, a great deal of foolish prejudice.
* Chap. vi. 14. f John i. 46, 47.
The
SERMON V* 81
The two great Prophets of God, placed by him at the head of each of his Dispensations, were MOSES and JESUS. In this they differed, that Moses bore the simple Character of a DIVINE MESSENGER; Jesus, the more complex one of a
DIVINE MESSENGER FORETOLD. For, though the
deliverance of the seed of Abraham was predicted in the sacred records along with the deliverance of the seed of Adam ; yet as the first was only a type and prelude of the other • it was not Moses the deliverer of the Jews, but Jesus the deliverer of mankind, the finisher of God's great work of REDEMPTION, who had the distinguished honour of being foretold ; as tfeli by intimation in a mysterious ritual, as by a more open declaration in the oracles of the Law and the Prophets-
However, the preliminary ground of credence was the same, in both ; namely, that the doctrines they taught were worthy of God. This worth consists in their TRUTH, and in their IMPORTANCE.
i. No falsehood can issue from the fountain of Truth. Whatever therefore pretends to come from God, which contradicts our common notions of his Being and attributes, must of necessity be condemned for an imposture, notwithstanding any appearance of extraordinary power in the propagator of such doc trines. And should an imposture happen to be at tended with these circumstances of power, it could not be fairly deemed an imputation on God's good ness, since the Holy Spirit hath foretold, that de ceivers should come with lying miracles, almost
VOL. IX. G of
82 SERMON V.
of force to draw aside the very elect themselves ; and since against the illusions of these deceivers, God hath given us so sure a test and criterion as are the Common notions concerning his Being and At tributes.
2. Nor is it, in the second place, a sufficient ground of credence, that what is thus taught be simply true. It must be truth of importance. Such as in its im mediate tendency respects the good of man, and in its ultimate, the glory of God. These are the neces sary qualities of such doctrines as we esteem WORTHY the extraordinary patronage of Heaven.
This then, may be called the preliminary ground of Credence, but not the CREDENTIAL itself. An important Truth is indeed worthy of God. But neither the Truth, nor the importance of it, shews that it had God for its immediate Author. Because it is impossible to measure the bounds of human capacity, or to ascertain what progress an improved understanding may make in the discovery of divine and moral truths. We have been told indeed, but by men of no great authority, " That the proper credentials of a divine mission are the truth and importance of the doctrine proposed." But in this, they are neither ingenuous nor serious. They hold no extraordinary Revelation at all. So that this is only one of their DISGUISED SENTENCES : which, like most others from the same quarter, is conveyed under an equivocal expression, confounding common speech, and making TRUTH and DIVINE TRUTH
the same thing.
The
SERMON V,
The 'proper Credential, therefore, of a Messenger from God is the POWER OF WORKING MIRACLES* A sort of evidence fitted to the capacity of all men4 For the difference between true and filse miracles, that is, between what we should admit and what we should reject, does not consist in the first's being the finger of God ; and the other, the operation of a finite Being: for then, man, who knows so little of the material atid intellectual world, would have no criterion to distinguish between the true and false : But the difference consists in this, That true mi racles are such as are worked in Confirmation of doctrines worthy of God ; and false, such as aim to support doctrines unworthy of him. Our security for the first conclusion is the goodness and justice of God, which will never suffer us (I do not mean the good in distinction to the bad, which is a low and foreign consideration, but mankind in general), to be brought into a situation where no human means can be found to prevent our falling into error* Out security for the second, is the certainty that immoral doctrines could never come from God ; and the Uncertainty what power other agents may have to produce appearances contrary to the common course of nature*
This seems to be the true notion of a MIRACLE^ as it subjects all which pretend to that character, to the decision of human judgment; every man being able to distinguish between what is done in confirma tion of doctrines worthy of God, and what is done to support doctrines unworthy of him. As ort the other hand, that which defines a Miracle to be
fc a the
&4 SERMON V.
the immediate work of God, must needs be a false notion of it, because it would render the Credential of Miracles an insufficient security, by reducing us to an inability of distinguishing between the true and the false.
On the whole, then, we conclude, that MIRACLES are the full Credential of a SIMPLE MESSENGER from God ; such as we suppose MOSES to be.
But, now, something more is necessary to establish the complicated Character of a MESSENGER FORE TOLD, such a one as JESUS challenged to himself.
It is not enough for such a Character that he works the most amazing Miracles; unless, at the same time, he be found to have those various marks upon him which belong to the Messenger foretold. For having assumed both parts of the prophetic Character, and united them in his own person, he is no longer at liberty to disjoin and prove them singly : so as that, when by miracles he hath esta blished the Character of a divine Messenger, this will remain unshaken, though he should fail in proving himself, by other evidence, the Messenger foretold. For not only all falsehood is incongruous to a divine mission, but is dissociable with all truth. Whatever supernatural evidence, therefore, is pro duced by such a personage, comes in equally in attestation of both parts of his Character ; and if it fail in one, cannot be made to support the other.
Now Miracles can be no proof of his being the Messenger foretold, when his person, actions, and fortunes agree not, in all circumstances, with the prophetic descriptions of that Messenger. For
Miracles
SERMON V. 85
Miracles cannot change times and places ; or make that to be, which is not, and that not to be, which is.
From hence, therefore, we draw this second conclusion, " that Miracles were not the full, or only, Credentials of Jesus, who was a Messenger foretold." There needed another kind of evidence to establish his pretensions : and that was, that he exactly answered to the description of the pre dicted MESSIAH, or, in other words, that he accomplished the Prophecies concerning him. And this we say he did in the amplest manner.
But now it may be asked, " Were his Miracles of no use to establish his Messiah-Character?"
The answer will lead us to the second part of what we are to speak to : The nature of those ancient prophecies which foretell the promised Messiah of the Jews,
We have observed that the office of this Messiah was to compleat and perfect God's great work of REDEMPTION ; to which, all his various dispensa^ tions to mankind were directed. As therefore Jesus was the finisher of the whole economy, it is natural to suppose that neither the worker nor liis work would be forgotten under any of those dispensations. This is indeed the fact : He is remembered under all of them, though in a manner conformable to the specific nature of each. Thus, when he is revealed to Adam, the representative of human kind, he is spoken of as the destroyer of their spiritual enemy who should bruise the head of the Serpent * : when promised to the Patriarchal family, * Gen. iii. 15.
ti 3 be
86 S E R M O N V.
he is represented as the glory and blessing of their Race, the Sfiik>kt to whnn should be the gathering of the people *. And when to the Mosaic Republic ; as a Prophet and Lawgiver like to its first founder f, So that jn all these graphical descriptions, though the drawing was the same, yet as the colouring was different, this would be one source of obscurity.
.Again, as each dispensation was preparatory to what succeeded, the relation between the type and antitype occasioned the prophecies concerning the succeed :ng dispensation to be intermixed with others respecting the fortunes of the present. Thus, for instance, the spiritual victories of the Messiah are intermixed with the temporal deliverances atrhievecl under the Jewish Leaders. And this is another source of obscurity,
Lastly, the Christian Dispensation is in its nature entirely opposite to the Jewish ; and yet the pro^ phetic account of it is conveyed under ideas altogether Appropriate to the LAW. But this, by the wisest de signation of Providence. One important p;irt of .Jesus' his office was to break down the partition- wall between Jews and Gentiles, to extend the privilege of being the select people of G od to all the race of Adam, to free his countrymen from the bondage of the ceremonial Law, to teach" all men the worship of God in spirit and in truth ; in a word, to change temporal blessings into eternal. But, at the time of making those predictions, the Mosaic system had not run out half its course : and so was not to be
* Gen. xlix. 10,
exposed
SERMON V. 87
exposed to popular contempt by an information that it u as only the harsh rudiment of one more easy and perfect. Now an exact and plain description of the Messiah's office, which would have told the people this secret, must needs have indisposed them to the reverence due to their LAW. A mysterious repose, therefore, was to be cast over these living Oracles, which should present no more to the dull conceptions of the People, than a large increase of blessings, to be procured in the age to come, by some mighty Deliverer. And the expedients employed for this purpose bear the clearest marks of the divinity of their Author.
The first was in the EXPRESSION ; by represent ing those spiritual blessings figuratively, under the carnal terms of the Law. Civil peace, national triumphs, and worldly plenty, to denote religious rectitude, victory over sin and death, and large cfr fusion of the Holy Spirit.
The second expedient was in the SKXSK. For it being necessary to the carrying on the general scheme of Providence, of which the Mosaic institution made fio considerable a' part, that the various fortunes and illustrious deliverers under this dispensation should, from time to time, be foretold for the consolation of those to whom the prophecy was delivered ; and for the trust and confidence of posterity which should see it fulfilled; for this end, I say, the Holy Spirit made use of these intermediate events for types and symbols of the sufferings and victories of the Messiah, the final objectof Prophecy. This all-wise contrivance of Providence produced whu,t Divines call the
£ 4
83 SERMON V.
SECONDARY SENSE OF PROPHECY *. And of this
species is the body of those predictions which relate to the Messiah.
These two expedients therefore are another source of mysterious obscurity.
What now are the inferences which must be drawn from the NATURE OF ANCIENT PROPHECY, as here explained ? They are these ;
1 . That the only reasonable way of establishing the evidence rising from it, is to set the various pre dictions together, to compare them with one another, and to illustrate what is obscure in this Prophecy with what is clear in that ; to reconcile the seeming discordancy in particular parts by the order, union, and harmony which results from the general econo my of the whole.
2. The second inference is, that even after all the advantages gained by the use of this method, there will still remain many obscurities in particular pro* phecies, which human wit alone will never be able to remove or clear up.
But, in contradiction to the first inference, we have been lately told, " That Prophecies are to be considered and iriforced like Miracles, singly and independently, as so many distinct arguments : and that to consider them in a chain, and as having a mutual connexion with one another, is a fanciful and
* Sec Div. Leg. Book vi. sect. 6.
romantic
SERMON V. 89
romantic system, which deserts the foundation laid by the Evangelists for their explanation *."
But the Objector seems not sufficiently to have considered the very different natures of these two extraordinary interpositions of Providence, in support of its dispensations, MIRACLES and PROPHECIES.
Single Miracles refer to no Whole or System. Each is independent oY another, and hath its own entire evidence in itself. If we consider a miracle, as in the object of the performer, it is simply the creden tial to a divine mission : if we consider it as directed to its subject, it is a display of the wisdom, the justice, or the goodness of that Being by whose power it is performed. And in either case, it carries its evi dence along with it, and receives no aid or addition from without. Indeed, it would be absurd to seek it in any other place. For, put the miracles as near together as you will, and embody them as closely as you can, the stronger will give no support to the weaker. When Jesus rebuked | the winds and the waves, and a calm ensued ; If any one should pre-
* — « The Evangelists applied them [the Prophecies] " singly and independently on each other, to this or that " occasion, as so many different arguments forthegene- " ral truth of the Gospel. — He [the Bp. of L.] seems to " have rejected the whole evidence of Prophecy as it was " understood and applied by the Apostles and Evan- " gclists ; and to have substituted, in its place, a romantic " system or fanciful chain at' antediluvian Predictions,"-— Dr. Middleton's Examination of the Bp. of London's Discourse concerning the use and intent of Prophecy,
PP- 5. 8-
viii* 20,
tend,
90 SERMON V.
tend, that the quiet naturally followed the emotion, and was not the immediate effect of divine power, the urging his walk upon the Sea * would not remove the objection. So again, when Peter '[ raised Dorcas from the dead, Should an unbeliever say, she was only in a swoon, the urging the restora tion of Lazarus, after he had been dead four days j, would hardly silence the cavil. The reason is plain, and the same in both cases. The similar Miracles Lad no dependance on one another.
The Prophecies on the contrary, though, like, the Miracles, they may be considered singly and fipart ; and the peculiar object of many of them be clearly fixed from their own evidence ; yet the truth of the greater part, and the fullest conviction in all, arise from their being seen in one view, and con-f
O 7
sidered as a dependent, connected, and entire Whole ; because the general object of all is one compleat Dispensation, consisting of various and subordinate parts, which reflect mutual light arid add mutual lustre to one another. Hence the clearer Prophecies must always communicate of their evidence to the more obscure. Thus if any one should doubt over what part of God's moral dis pensation the Messiah should reign, whether the Jewish or Evangelic, when he is prophesied of in the words — Yet have I set my King upon my holy Hill of Zlon\\ he may be fully satisfied by the Prophecy of Jeremiah : Behold the day is come, saith the Lord, that I will make a NEW COVENANT
* Matth. xiv. 2& *f Acts ix. 41 ,
J John ^i, 39. | Psalm ii. 6.
S E R M O N V. 91
with the house of Israel, not according to the
covenant that I made with their Fathers, fyc.
But— I will put my LAW INTO THEIR INWARD PARTS, and write it in their Hearts*.
And the reason of this difference is evident ; The subject of prophecies is ONE ; and the subject of miracles are MANY,
In opposition therefore to so plain a truth, it would be idle to tell us, " That Jesus and his Disciples employed the Prophecies singly and in dependently on each other, to this or that occasion, as so many different arguments for the general truth of the Gospel.'1 We own they may be thus employed : and when they are so, they are considered under the nature of Miracles, and ur^ed. as the objector well expresses it, for the general truth of the Gospel. But what then ? If, because there are some prophecies plain and clear enough to stand alone, on the prin ciples of those to whom they were addressed, and therefore the Evangelists have put them into that position ; must the dark and obscure ones, which require the aid of others to support them, be treated in the same manner ? Are we not rather to conclude that their different circumstances require a different management ? This is so far from deserting the foundation of the Evangelists f , that it is pro secuting divine knowledge upon the same principles.
* Chap. xxxi. 31,
T " It is certain there was no occasion to desert that (f foundation which the Evangelists had laid, and to *' take refuge in a precarious system." Exam, of the Bp. of Lond. p. 24.
These
gi S E R M O N V.
These very Evangelists employ single maxims of morality, independent on each other. But is this any proof that there is no system of morals : Or that our urging those truths systematically, and under all their dependencies, which the Evangelists pro posed singly and without connexion, is a deserting the foundations of the Gospel?
Would you have the whole truth ? it- is this : The fittest way of conveying instruction to the People, whether prophetical or moral, was to urge their verities singly and independently. For long deduc tions and chains of reasoning were unsuitable to the capacities of those with whom Jesus and his disciples were concerned. But systematical and political Divines (as they are here called) were engaged with Philosophers and Free-thinkers. And the fittest way of urging Prophecies and moral truths to such, was to propose them systematically and in a chain. For it had been pretended that certain Scripture- prophecies have no support from fact; and that certain Gospel-precepts have no foundation in reason.
2. We come now to the second consequence result- from the nature of Prophecy. And this is, that there will be still many difficulties in particular Prophecies, which mere human wit, with all the assistance of science, will never be able to remove.
And here comes in the answer which we promised to give to the question c< concerning the use of Mi racles to establish the Messiah-Character, "
And
S E li M O N V. 93
And this we shall venture to make in the affir mative ; and to declare, that they are of great use.
It hath been already observed, that no miracles are sufficient to prove those Prophecies to relate to Jesus, which, on the logical rules of interpretation, can be plainly shewn to relate only to another : be cause Miracles cannot make that to be true, which is false.
But the conclusion is very different in matters which human wisdom must leave for ever in doubt; and which, on account of the obscure delivery of the Prophecy, Reason finds itself unable to resolve. In this case, the word of an infallible Interpreter (and such we must esteem him who is en dowed with the power that Jesus exercised) hath all the authority requisite to decide in doubtful ques tions. Human wisdom cannot resolve which of two things was in the Speaker's meaning: but the wis dom residing in that Agent, to whom God hath im parted the knowledge of all divine mysteries, can resolve it; and the Miracles of Jesus shew that this knowledge was communicated to him.
And AUTHORITY hath here the force of the most convincing evidence. Common reason, in the af fairs of civil life, hath always directed men to the like solution. In all their doubts they have recourse to superior wisdom. On this, they regulate their conduct, and rest satisfied in the security of its de cision. The Authority in question, to ilx the t sense of doubtful Prophecies, differs only in this, that the evidence of the resolved truth is unspeakably greater, as divine wisdom exceeds human.
And
94 S £ R M O N V.
And we have the same security (infinite Good* ness), that we shall be kept from error, when Mi racles are employed to fix the sense of doubtful Prophecies, as when more generally applied to support the character of a divine Messenger. Miracles being a species of evidence which reason directs us to confide in, as well in one case as in the other*
With regard therefore to Prophecies thus circum stanced, we say, that the authority of a worker of miracles may be fitly applied to shew, that he is of a truth that PROPHET that should come into the world.
So that we see, licentious writers, from Porphyry down to Collins, have misemployed their pains in proving, " That the Prophecies which are said to concern the Messiah are so indeterminate, that oa the common rules of interpretation, we can never apply them with certainty rather to him than to any other Jewish Deliverer." For was it true, as it certainly is not, all that could be inferred from thence is only this, That such Prophecies conclude nothing in fa vour of a particular japplication, till the obscurities^ arising from the intermediate manner in which they are delivered, be removed. There are some ob scurities which no human lights can penetrate, but there are none so impervious but must give way to the divine.
It is the proper resort, therefore, of superior wis* dom to decide this doubtful question, and tell us, to whom such Prophecies belong.
And must not He, who inspired the Oracle, know of whom he made the prediction ? Tor it was the
1 7 same
SERMON V. §5
Same spirit who cast a mysterious veil over Truth irt the Jewish Prophecies, and became manifest in the Christian Miracles. Tims much these licentious writers themselves will be forced to own , while they reason, as they do here, on the supposition of real Prophecies, and only pretend to bring in question their received meaning.
On the whole, therefore, we conclude, That to clear up doubtful Prophecies by the application of Miracles, is a species of evidence which determines the judgment with as perfect assurance as if the pre diction had beeri conceived in the plainest terms of grammar, and in the directest propositions of logic*
But the mistake lay here, The enemies of our Faith saw clearly enough that Miracles could not establish a sense of Prophecies in opposition to all human rules of interpretation ; and therefore con cluded that Miracles had no influence on Prophecy at all. .This was too hasty. They saw in what case the authority of Miracles was excluded; but they would not see where it came in ; and so, because a Miracle could not do every thing in establishing the Messiah- character, they would suffer it to do nothing.
But let us leave the perversity of men, to adore the good Providence of God ; whose POWER, in the use of Miracles, is so admirably fitted to supply and clear up the defects and obscurities, which his WISDOM suffered to remain in the Prophecies*
II. Haviilg explained and vindicated the Charac ter of this last great Messenger of God ; the subject
leads
g6 SERMON V.
leads me to consider the nature and genius of the Religion he was sent to propagate amongst men* So that having seen the TRUTH of his mission, we may now understand the USE and NECESSITY of his Work.
St. Paul, in the words of my text, hath marked out those essential qualities which distinguish the CHARACTER and OFFICE of Jesus from all other, whether true or pretended, Messengers from God, Jesus Christ^ says he, is made unto us Wisdom, and Righteousness, and Santijication, and Redemption* Now as this was addressed both to the Gentile and Jewish converts in the Church of Corinth, it is con trived to shew, in one view, how Christianity hath reformed the depravities of PAGANISM, and sup plied the deficiencies of the LAW.
This beautiful summary of Gospel-blessings (for now we turn from the Worker to his work) is so artfully adapted to the Writer's views and purposes, as will deserve a particular explanation.
And here let me previously observe, That though the Wisdom and Righteousness, — the Sanctification and Redemption, here mentioned, be each respective to the whole race of mankind; yet the GENTILES are more particularly concerned in the WISDOM and RIGHTEOUSNESS; and the JEWS in the SANCTI- FICATIOX and REDEMPTION. In explaining, there fore, these four essential offices in the Messiah- character, I shall consider each of them as referring distinctly and particularly to the One or other of these two great divisions of the religious world.
I. And
S E R M O X V. 97
I. And first, concerning the reformation of the GENTILES, by Gospel Wisdom and Righteousness.
i . Jesus Christ, saith the Apostle, is made unto us, WISDOM. That is, He was made Wisdom unto the Gentile world by instructing it in the knowledge of the true God; his nature and attributes : -And by explaining the relation in which man stands to his Maker. A WISDOM, which, at this time, the Gen tiles greatly wanted : most of them being destitute of that knowledge ; and all, without exception, ig norant of that relation.
The early descendants of Noah soon lost the re vealed knowledge of their Creator. Which though indeed revived by an extraordinary dispensation of Providence, was however confined within the gates of a single family : While the rest of mankind, partly by too great a confidence in that unfaithful guardian of Truth, TRADITION; and partly from too little attention to their better instructor, REASON, fell into the most senseless Idolatries.
For living at first scattered abroad in independent tribes, their gross, untutored minds could rise no higher than to the sensible causes of good and evil: the most considerable of which being the elements and heavenly bodies, These became the first object of their worship and veneration. And having experienced them to be, sometimes, the authors of health and plenty; and sometimes again, of pestilence and famine ; they from thence began to entertain an opinion of good and evil Demons.
But being now collected into Bodies, and formed into Communities; the sudden supplial of all the
Voi . IX. II wants
98 S E R M O N V.
wants of life, which followed, was so sensibly understood, that mistaken gratitude took another channel, and turned as strongly on their deceased Lawgivers, the generous procurers of this their improved condition ; whom they soon venerated and exalted into gods.
But as civil life introduced and encouraged the culture of the mind as well as body ; both the first, and second mode of worship were, from their mani fest absurdities, in danger of falling under the popular contempt. To prevent this mischief, the Legislator diverted the steady attention to either, by confound ing them together; making ELEMENTARY and HERO- WORSHIP representative of one another," and then laying on a new cover over both, by the invention of a third species of idolatry, SYMBOLICAL of the other two. But a further account of this matter, and how the two original and simple forms produced that more monstrous compound ; in which, first of all, brutes, and then, stocks and stones were worship ped ; — from what accidents of error, from what contrivances of fraud, these prodigies arose, which hath since given so much exercise to the learned, all this is without the limits of the present discourse*. Let it suffice to observe, that St. Paul hath not aggravated the case, where, in his Epistle to the Romans, he says, that the Gentile world had changed the glory of the incorruptible God, into an image •made Like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four- footed beasts, and creeping things '\\
* See the Divine Legation, Book IV. *r Chap. i. ver. 23.
SERMON V. 99
This was the condition of the Pagan world in general. And though, from time to time, some thinking men arose amongst them of a more enlarged
O O O
understanding than the common, who, as the same Apostle observes, could, from the visible things of a created world, infer the tier rial power and Godhead of its Author * ; yet even these, as he adds, when they knew Godj glorified him not as God"\ ; never so much as once attempting to introduce his wor ship to any People or Nation amongst whom they lived, or where they had the greatest credit. So that the one true God, though KNOWN in most places, was no where publicly WORSHIPPED but in the land of Judaea only.
This leads me to the second point, 'c The uni versal ignorance in the Gentile world, of the rela tion in which man stands to his Creator.*' The Philosophers and Lawgivers had concurred in a general opinion (the absurdity of which is sufficiently exposed by the success of the Hebrew Sage and Legislator in a different conduct) that to teach publicly the knowledge, or to establish nationally the worship of the one true God, would be of great disservice to society ; and had therefore kept all consideration of him enclosed within the veil of their MYSTERIES. And further, to hide from their own consciences the fraud and prevarication of such a measure, they first brought those whom they had intrusted with that knowledge, and afterwards, themselves to believe, That the FIRST CAUSE was
* Chap. i. vcr. 20. f Ver. 21.
H 2 an
ioo SERMON V.
an extra-mundane Being, too excellent, as well a? too remote, to be approached, and addressed to, in the first instance. On which account, they said, he had delegated the government of the world to inferior Deities, his substitutes ; and had made Them the immediate objects of religious worship. In cultivating this superstition, they found another advantage : it gave a shew of reason to that sense less Polytheism whose rise and progress we have just described : and, at the same time, screened it from the approaches of over-curious inquirers. But then it could not fail of producing very fatal mistakes concerning the close and near relation in which man stands towards God.
All this shews how expedient it was for the happi ness of Mankind, that Jesus should be made, unto us, wisdom ; when the most enlightened teachers of it amongst the Gentiles professing themselves to be wise became fools, by their not glorifying him as God whom they had clearly discovered to be the only true one.
Let us now see the need the Jews had of this wisdom ; for though, as was said, it be principally objective to the state of the Gentile world, yet it hath its after-view to the followers of the Law; who wanted, likewise, though not in the same de gree, the aid of evangelic wisdom. For the Charac ter of a national, tutelary Deity, under which God had been pleased to assume the patronage of their idolatrous Forefathers in Egypt ; the Form of their civil constitution, which was Theocratical ; and the Genius of they- ceremonial worship, which was
fitted,
SERMON V. 101
fitted, through the grossness of their prejudices, to secure the great end of their separation, preservation from idolatry ; all these, I say, concurred, amongst a perverse people, to heget wrong notions of the ATTRIBUTES QF GOD ; as if They stood by nature, or adoption, in a nearer relation to him than the rest of their fellow-creatures ; being chosen for the objects of his special care, on account of some inherent excellence ; or at least for some secret fondness which God had, and would indulge, for the illustrious race of Abraham. Vain notions, and of dangerous consequence ! which, though they received no real support from Moses and the Prophets, were yet, by length of time, so rooted and interwoven in the passions and affections of that people, as to need a new Law to weed them out
And thus was Jesus indeed made Wisdom both to Jew and Gentile : bv instructing the ignorance
7 v O O
of the one, and reforming the error of the other, in that supreme species of Wisdom, the knowledge of the true God,
2. The advantages of his being made, unto us, RIGHTEOUSNESS, come next to be considered.
As the ignorance of, and mistakes concerning, the FIRST CAUSE were so universal in the Gentile world, it can hardly be supposed that the state of VIRTUE was in any very good condition amongst them. And in fact, we find that their Morality was neither speculatively solid, nor practically sincere.
H 3 The
loa SERMON V.
The fitness of some actions and the UP fitness of others are discoverable from the NATURAL RELA TIONS and essential difference of things. And this fitness and unfitness are further supported by a MORAL SENSE, or an instinctive approbation of good, and dislike of evil. But still, the proper ground of moral obligation is the WILL OF GOD : Because all obligation implies an obliger ; and moral Jit ness \§ only a rule to direct us to the will of the obliger ; nor is the moral sense any other than his arbritrary impression, to dispose the human will to a conformity with the divine. The Will of God, therefore, is the real ground of obligation ; or that which properly maketh man accountable for his actions *.
Now this only solid foundation of morality the Gentile world always wanted : and indeed, while under the ignorance and mistakes mentioned above, could not but want. For their false Gods having, as must needs be, from the private views and intrigues of the Priests their interpreters, many different and contrary Wills, these could never be made the ground of a consistent morality : and the true God being esteemed an extra-mundane Being, who left his Government to others, afforded no WILL at all, for this purpose. So that their only recourse for instruction and practice was to the MORAL SEXSE, and NATURAL RELATIONS of things ; which, though they might present a specious system to the understanding, had not weight or authority to incline the Will *.
* See Divine Legation, Bcok I, Sect. 4.
For
SERMON V. 103
For their practice of Virtue (to come to the se cond point) was as impure as it was unstable. In morals, Example hath the strongest influence : and this influence increaseth in proportion to the dignity of the subject in which it is found. The Example of the Deity, therefore, which enforceth itself on a principle of Religion, must needs have the strongest and widest influence. But the. actions of the Pagan Gods, recorded in their sacred stories, were so im moral as could not but highly corrupt the practice of their worshippers. And Antiquity informs us, that in truth it did so.
Nor should a moral cause of this degeneracy from Virtue be forgotten. St. Paul assures us that God, for their punishment in not retaining him in their know ledge, gave them over to a reprobate mind, to DO those things that are not convenient. Hence, as he tells us, they werejilled with #// UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, fornication, wickedness, covetousjiess, maliciousness*, §c. The account goes on, in so black a catalogue of vice, as sufficiently shews that, at the time Jesus Christ was made unto us righteousness, the Pagan world was sunk into the lowest state of misery and corruption.
Nor were the Jews themselves so sound, in these particulars, as not to want this great physician of the Soul. And what was said of the Wisdom is true of the Righteousness, mentioned in my text ; it hath a secondary reference to the chosen People. For, the wrong notions they had conceived of the God of their Fathers, and of the relation in which they
* Rom. i. a 8, & feq.
ii 4 stood
104 SERMON V.
stood to him, had much vitiated and deformed their social virtue. They confined the precept of loving their Brother to the descendants of their fraternal Tribes ; and neglected and despised the rest of the sons of Adam ; who, because ritually unholy and profane, were deemed to be naturally unrelated to them. A Principle which made them as unfaithful subjects, when for their crimes they were sentenced to the yoke of the Gentiles, as they were merciless neighbours while independent and more powerful ; neither rendering to Ccesar the things which were C&sars ; nor to God the things which at all times he principally required of them — to do justly > to love mercyy and to walk humbly before him *. This, and other errors which their false Traditions had intro duced, and which some original compliances with the hardness of their hearts had occasionally coun tenanced, made Jesus tell his followers, that, unless their RIGHTEOUSNESS should exceed theRiGRiEous- NESS of the Scribes and Pharisees v they should in no case enter into the kingdom of Heaven f.
From what hath been said then it appears, that Jesus, as he is made unto us, wisdom and righteous ness, is to be considered under the Character of a MESSENGER SENT from God, to instruct men in the ways of RELIGION and VIRTUE. How much such a one was wanting, we have endeavoured to shew in a fair representation of the state of BOTH, at the time of his coming.
II. But this was not the whole of his Character. He was a MESSENGER FORETOLD ; as appears, and
*Micahvi. S. t Matt. v. 20.
is
SERMON V. 105
is insinuated from what is further said of him, That he was made unto us Sanctification and Redemption.
To such as are unacquainted with the present state of Theology amongst us, it may perhaps seem strange that I should stop, in this place, to observe, that Sanctification and Redemption are as true and essential offices in the Character of Jesus, and as ex tensive to Mankind, as the Wisdom and Righteous ness assigned unto it. But there are some amongst us, who give a figurative sense to the latter attri butes in my text ; and in reality confine the charac ter of Jesus to that of a Messenger sent from God, to instruct the world in truths of religious Wisdom, and moral Righteousness.
But to suppose, that when the Son of God is said to be made, wisdom and righteousness, we must un derstand by it that he really taught men Wisdom and Righteousness ; and yet, when he is said to be made Sanctification and redemption, he did not really sanctify and redeem ; but that, by instructing men in a more pure and perfect worship, he only excelled all the IMAGINARY; and abrogated all the CARNAL sanctijications and redemptions, both of Jews and Gentiles ; to suppose this, I say, is the highest violation of all rational interpretation : and gives us a meaner idea of the eternal Son of God than a Pa gan Sophist would have entertained of him on hear ing St. Paul's first sermon at Athens. But this per versity can be charitably accounted for no otherwise than from a violent disgust these men have taken at some current explanations of the doctrine of Re- demption ; fitter indeed to discredit, than to confirm
or
io6 SERMON V.
or recommend this fundamental principle of our holy Religion. But this is a matter which requires a different treatment. I shall consider it in its proper place * ; and now proceed with the subject before us.
I have observed, that as Wisdom and Righteous- ness were principally addressed to the Gentiles ; so Sanctijication and Redemption were directed to the Jews. But, as a regard to the Jewish people was not excluded in the former ; so neither was a re gard to the Gentiles excluded in the latter.
It is easily seen why the representation of Jesus's being made unto us II isdom and Righteousness is particularly addressed to the Gentiles : They most wanted those blessings. Nor is it more difficult to apprehend why the representation of his being made unto us Sanctijication and Redemption is particularly directed to the Jews : for in their custody were de posited the living Oracles, which explain that state and condition of man, from whence arises the ne cessity of Sanctijication and
I. But let us consider the words as they lie in order. Jesus Christ (says the Apostle) teas made unto us SANCTIFJCATJOX ; that is, he sanctified, or made us holy.
It was a received opinion in the ancient world, that human nature had contracted a stain or pol lution : and that not only particular purify ings, but also some general Sanctijication was necessary to put man in a capacity of being restored to the favour
* Divine Legation, Book IX;
of
S E R M O N V. 107
of the Deity. Whether this Opinion arose from the remains of a Tradition concerning the FALL; or from every man's conscious feeling of his own dis orders ; or whether both concurred to its establish ment, is very uncertain. However it had that tone of the voice of Nature, Universality. And though it gave occasion to infinite superstitions in the rituals of national lustrations, yet the necessity of some real Sanctljicatwn seems fairly to be deduced from it.
When God, therefore, separated the Jewish people, the first object of their Legislator's ministry was to render them pure and holy. And as by reason of the inveteracy of their prejudices, and the grossness of their apprehensions, the real means of purifying human nature were to be conveyed under the cover of such rites and ceremonies as were then in use amongst men ; so because the common way of mak ing a people holy, was to adopt them into the protection of a tutelary God ; and of rendering particulars clean, was by ablutions and other cathartic rites; the Almighty was pleased to assume the titles of their national God, and regal Governor; and to institute, in the offices of his worship, lustra tions and expiatory sacrifices, as well for particulars as the Community. On these accounts it is that he tells them, Ye shall be. unto me a KINGDOM OF PRIESTS, and an holy nation*: for the regal and sacerdotal were the two peculiar characters of ancient sanctity.
But the LAW having only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things,
* Exod. xix. 6.
cculd
io8 SERMON V,
could never make the comers thereunto perfect * : therefore the true Sanctijication of mankind was re served for the ministry of Jesus ; when being col lected together into one people, under his govern ment as LORD ; and received into his protection by the justification of faith in him as MESSIAH, they became a ROYAL PRIESTHOOD and an holy nation}, as the Apostle calls them, alluding to the title given to the Hebrews by Moses; and transferring it to the Christian Church in a completory sense, as it was applied to the Jewish, in a typical.
But a matter of so high importance as the com pletion of God's religious dispensations, in the final Sanctijication of mankind, will deserve a fuller ex planation.
When the Sanctijier (whose character and office cannot well be considered separately) was accused, by those who traversed his ministry, of purposing to overturn the established Religion, he answered, Think not that I am come to destroy the Law and the Prophets. I am not come, to destroy, but to fulfil £. How he executed this commission, in the character of SANCTIFIER, we are now to consider.
Under the old Law, God was pleased to take upon himself the office of KING; he assigned the office of PRIEST to Aaron ; and that of PROPHET, to Moses; the Priest being the MEDIATOR or Advo cate for men to God ; and the Prophet the MES SENGER of God to Men. Now the Messiah taking 'all these offices on himself; and uniting them in his
* Heb. x. i. f i Pet. xi. 9.
JMatt. v. 17.
©wn
SERMON V. 109
own Person, did, in the truest and exactest sense, fulfil the Law and the Prophets. For by the Law and the Prophets is meant the whole of the Jewish dispensation, as delivered by Moses, and explained and illustrated by those holy men, whom God, from time to time, raised up to govern and instruct his people.
This institution consisted of three parts ; the PO LITICAL, the CEREMONIAL, and the MORAL, under which was contained the SPIRITUAL.
1 . The political part was a THEOCRACT. The purposes of this extraordinary form of government, as they related to the carnal administration of the Mosaic Economy, I have consided elsewhere *. But the spiritual end was to introduce the dominion of the Son, which was to be extended to all mankind. The Prophets, the interpreters of the Law, whom, as well as the Law itself, Jesus tells us, he was sent tofalfil, inform us at large, how this peculiar regi men was to become an universal blessing. First by the resignation of the Theocratic dominion to the Son •(* ; and secondly, by extending that dominion over the whole race of mankind J. Thus the Messiah
'fulfilled both what the genius of the Law and the inspiration of the Prophets foretold of him; as it concerned the government political. And in so doing he assumed the title of KING of the Jews*
2. The second divison of the Mosaic Law was the ceremonial: a ceremonial, which heavily loaded every
* See Divine Legation, Book V. Sect. 2. f Isaiah ix. 6, 7. J Ibid. chap. xi. 10.
part
no SERMON V.
part of God's worship with multifarious and irk some rites. Now though the common condition of humanity declares that this duty, especially the pub lic part of it, can never be decently or properly dis charged without the aid of some exterior ceremo nies ; yet the minute observance of so complicated a Ritual tends rather to stifle than to invigorate the spirit of devotion. We may therefore reasonably conclude, that these things, which have no moral worth or value inherent in them, were not instituted on their own account, but for the sake of some oc casional good they were found capable of producing. And of this, we have clear intimations in the writings of the Prophets. They frequently tell us that the ceremonial Law was of no use or value in itself; but that, the thing in which God most delighted, was the moral Law of righteousness *. If then the Jewish Ritual was of so slight account with the Institutor himself, it may be reasonably asked how it came to be so minutely delivered and so scrupu lously exacted in his service? In this likewise the Prophets will instruct us. It was imposed to restrain a headstrong people from Idolatry, to which they were violently and obstinately carried f : and, for that purpose, it had a perpetual reference to the then reigning superstitions. But as this security from idolatry (considering them as a People) was for the sake of preserving a sound and pure foundation for the future dispensation, of which, This was only the
• Amos v. 21, & seq. Micah vi. 7, 8. f Jerera. vii. 22, 23. Ezek. xx. 24, 25.
rudiments,
SERMON V. in
rudiments, it pleased the divine wisdom that the ceremonial Law should not only be directed against those superstitions, but should likewise be typical of all the great parts of that future dispensation : and whoever examines the ceremonial Law with the care and attention so important a study requires, will con fess that both one and the other were equally in the intention of the Lawgiver *.
The ultimate end therefore of these rites being to prefigure the death and sufferings of Christ, lie may, with a peculiar propriety, be allowed to call himself the fulfiller of the Ceremonial Law. It being in complete and destitute of its final purpose, till Jesus had performed the whole of that mission which the ceremonial Law, by prefiguring, had predicted. And when that was once performed, the Types of course were to cease. Now these types con sisting of various kinds of sacrificial rites,, Jesus by offering up himself on the cross for the sins of mankind, as was foretold by the Prophets, eminently fulfilled the ceremonial Law, in quality of PRIEST.
3. The last and noblest branch of the Jewish Law- was the Moral : which instructs man in all his re lations, whether to his common nature, to God,* or his fellow- creatures. This, though delivered pure by Moses, and according to the truth of things, did yet, like the two other branches (as we have seen above) need the master-hand of this divine Teacher : who, in delivering to mankind a more perfect system
* See Divine Legation, Book IV. Sect. 6.
of
112 S E R M O N V.
of moral duty, as was predicted of him *, discharged the office of PROPHET, or of a Messenger from God; as in that of PRIEST he discharged the office of the Messenger foretold
, But under the moral, as we have said, was coin- prised the spiritual. And it was this which was more peculiarly the prophetic office : whose business it was not only to give to every part, in this econo my, its due rank ; but to foretel the future fortunes of all; How the Political should be EXTENDED; the Ceremonial FULFILLED; and the Moral, PU RIFIED and exalted.
Thus we see, from the nature, end, and condition pf this political, ceremonial, and moral economy, that Jesus was theful/iller of the Law ; and, from his doing this in the very manner the inspired men of old predicted, that he was likewise theful/iller of the Prophets f. Hence he became truly and properly the SANCTIFICATION of the People of God: and through them, of the whole Church of Christ.
This is that aggregate or corporate holiness to which the Gentile nations blindly aspired ; and of which, the Jewish people had gained only the shadow.
But besides this GENERAL Sanctiftcation ; which, as we have shewn, is the immediate office of the Son; there was a PARTICULAR,' by which each individual was cleansed and purified ; and this was performed through the ministry of the HOLY SPIRIT;
* Isaiah, xi. 5. and xlii. 1, 4.
f See Divine Legation, Book VI. sect. 6.
the
SERMON V. 113
the Comforter, whom Jesus, on his leaving the world, had promised to send upon the faithful, to remain with them for ever *. Who, by the effusion of divine grace shed abroad in their hearts, effects that purity of mind, which all other ritual modes of private lustration tried at in vain, or at best did out typically represent.
Now both these purifications, the aggregate and particular, make together, that true Sanctification* of which Jesus is said in my text to be the author, and bestower on mankind.
We have observed that Sanctification and Redemp tion are addressed to the Jews primarily ; as Wisdom and Righteousness are to the Gentiles. But as the former graces had a secondary reference to the Jews, so the latter, as we shall now see, have the same reference to the Gentiles.
The want of a Sanctifier in the Pagan world was still more urgent and deplorable than in the Jewish. For the Gentiles having received DEMONS for their tutelary Gods, and devoted themselves to unclean spirits by their national worship, the PUBLIC was become, in the saddest sense of the word, PROFANE. And, by administering their demonic rites in all the unnatural and exorbitant practices of murder and uncleanness, PARTICULARS were become in the highest degree IMPURE.
' Thus Gentile impiety and pollution being at its height, and the Jewish holiness and purity exterior only, and imperfect, there was a pressing NECESSITY of Jesus' s being made unto us, Sanctijicalion.
* John xiv. 16. and xvi. 7. VOL. IX. I 2. But
ii4 SERMON V.
2. But this was not the ultimate benefit bestowed on man, through the ministry of Jesus. Sanctifica- tlon was only preparatory to a greater blessing : and, like the wedding-garment in the parable, a habit of dignity given to appear in before the Lord our Redeemer.
For, in the last place, the Apostle tells us, he was made unto us, REDEMPTION.
Amongst the many gracious dispensations of God to Mankind, the Mosaic history informs us of one, in which the depth of the riches both of his Wisdom and Knowledge claims our more particular admira tion. And this is the FREE GIFT OF IMMORTALITY to the first man ; and, through him, to his Posterity, on the easy condition, we find, annexed unto it : \vhich Adam having too easily violated, he and his whole race returned into a state of mortality and corruption.
From this bondage under death and sin, God, in his infinite mercy, decreed to deliver us. And the condition of a remitted forfeiture being as absolutely in the breast of the Remitter, as the con dition on which the blessing was originally conferred; he was pleased, it should be done by ONE man's willingly offering himself to death for an atonement for ALL. That as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners ; so by the obedience of one should many be made righteous *.
How agreeable this succinct account of Man's FALL and RESTORATION is, to what the best and most received philosophy teacheth us both of God
* Romans, v. 29.
and
SERMON V. 115
and Man, shall be considered at large in a fitter place *,
This future Redemption of the world had been promised, even from the time of the Fall, to the holy men of old, in terms more or less obscure, as best fitted the dispensation under which the prediction was delivered. The Chosen People had a more defined image of it in their typical redemp tion from the slavery of Egypt, and their admission to the temporal blessings of the land of Canaan. It was still more circumstantially figured in their public ritual, through the ministration of expiatory sacrifices, performed with many ceremonies plainly descriptive of the great sacrifice on the Cross, for the spiritual Redemption of mankind.
This people, then, must hear with conviction, and, as many of them as were unprejudiced, must confess with pleasure, that Jesus Christ, by being made unto its Redemption, was the true completion of the Lazv and the Prophets.
Nor was this blessing of Redemption without a secondary reference to the state and condition of the Gentiles ; whose Religion was not merely ineffec tual, like the Jewish, to redeem them from the chains of death and sin, but such as had brought them under the more disgraceful bondage of sub jection to the Devil, those wicked spirits, whom they worshipped and adored as their patron Gods,
This was the condition both of Jews and Gentiles, when the Messiah came to set men free. And here let it be observed, in honour of those two Charac-
* Divine Legation, Book IX.
I 2 teriatic
ti6 SERMON V.
teristic miracles, the raising the dead, and the casting out devils, that the one elegantly designed his office of redeeming the Jews from the power of the grave, and the other his office of freeing the Gentiles from the tyranny of Demons. The beauty in this disposition of the economy was too striking to be passed over in silence : Otherwise, I think, even this moderated use, of spiritualizing the miracles, should be for born ; as fanciful and precarious. We can conceive no otherwise of the miracles of a divine Person corning from God, let the peculiar mode of his dispensation be what it will, than that they should be objective to the corporal infirmities of men. Now between these and their spiritual disorders, there is, by their common qualities ot want and distress, so much similitude and so natural an analogy, as affords no ground of reasonable supposition, that one was a designed or prophetic representation of the other.
Thus have I endeavoured to shewr which was the main purpose of this discourse, That Jesus is made unto us, Sanctification and Redemption, in as true and real a sense as he is our Wisdom and Righteous- "ness. Nor is this a matter of small moment. The teaching JVisdom and Righteousness made his mission EXPEDIENT: but the bestowing Sanctification and Redemption made it NECESSARY.
To instruct the world in the knowledge of one God, and in the practice of moral virtue, was, with out doubt, putting us into the road of the divine favour ; and making our attainment 'of the supreme good more easy and expeditious. But God, whose
mercies
SERMON V. 117
mercies are over all his works, and who, in this very revelation, hath informed us, that from those to whom little is given, much will not be required *, would have received his miserable creatures to his mercy, in what condition soever he had suffered them to remain, if so be they had taken care to make the best use of the little that was afforded them.
But Sanctlfication and Redemption do more than shew us into the road of God's favour: They restore us to the free privilege of LIFE AND IMMORTALITY ; which man having forfeited, by a breach of the condition on which it was bestowed, had no pretence to reclaim ; so that whenever it was restored, it might be given on such conditions as the all-gracious Donor should think fit to impose. It is restored: and the conditions are FAITH in, and OBEDIENCE to, a crucified SAVIOUR; who, by this sacrifice of himself, became the Sanctijica- tion and Redemption of mankind. The consequence is, that these are not only useful and expedient for procuring God's favour, but absolutely necessary for our recovery of life and immortality.
This is placing CHRISTIANITY on its proper basis, a foundation of real strength and solidity.
But when the presumption of men tempts them to disjoin what God hath put together, not only the benefits of that union are lost, but other various, and unthought-of evils arise, which subject the
* Luke xii. 48.
I 3 religious
rig SERMON V.
religious economy, thus abused, to every kind of injury ; dishonouring the Author of our Faith ; and exposing the Christian profession to perpetual
insults.
This was never more unhappily verified than in the case before us.
1 . For he who considers Jesus only in the light of a Reputlisher of the Law of nature, can hardly entertain a higher opinion of the Saviour of the world than some have done of SOCRATES, whom Erasmus esteemed an object of devotion, and many a good Protestant hath thought to be divinely inspired. For was not Socrates, by his preaching up moral virtue, and by his dying to bear witness to the unity of the God, made, to the Grecian people, aqd (by means of their extended commerce ©f politeness) to the rest of mankind, wisdom and Righteousness? And what more did Jesus? for, according to the principles of this paganized Chris tianity, his titles of MESSIAH and REDEEMER are reduced to mere figurative and accommodated terms, But these bold extremes men ran into through their ignorance of the nature of those prophecies which foretel his advent; and the absurdity of those systems which pretend to explain his office. *
2. As this Theology degrades Jesus to the low condition of a Grecian Sophist ; so it renders his Religion obnoxious to the insults of, every daring Impostor.
He
SERMON V. 119
He was sent, say these new Doctors of the Church, to teach mankind the worship of the true God, and the practice of moral righteousness *.
" This will be readily allowed, replies an under standing MAHOMETAN | ' And on this very prin ciple, WE hold, that when Jesus had done his office, and mankind had again relapsed into anti-chrixtian Idolatry and Polytheism, as before into Pagan, God sent OUR PROPHET, who worked the like sudden and sensible reformation in the NORTH-EAST, that your Prophet did in the NORTH- WEST.' '
What reply now will our rational Divine make to this apology for ISM A EL ISM ?
All he has to say is " That Jesus and his Apostles have every where intimated, that his Gospel is the last of God's dispensations ; on the terms of which our final doom is irrevocably to be decided : so that all future pretenders to the like office and character must needs be esteemed impostors."
But here a DEIST would come in, and take advantage of our distress; for it is to be observed alike of all these shifting defences of fanciful, and unscriptural systems, that they only supply new arms
to
* A celebrated Frenchman, who writes on all subjects indifferently, and, perhaps, knew better what he was about than these Divines, goes still further, and affirms, That Christianity is not only no more than the Religion of nature perfected, but that it could not possibly be any more. — " Notre Religion reveiee n'est meme, et ne " pouvoit etrCj que cette Loi naturelle perfectionnee." Discours sw le T/ieisme, par M. de Voltaire.
•f The Alcoran teaches, that Jesus did not suffer on
the cross. Yet Mahomet denied our Saviour's Divinity.
I 4
120 SE RMON V.
to the various adversaries of our faith ; A Deist, I say, would be ready to reply, " That it is indeed true that Jesus hath declared his own Mission to be the LAST : but that this is the artful expedient of every pretended Messenger from Heaven, in order to per petuate his own scheme, and to obviate the danger of an antiquated authority. The Impostor, Ma homet himself, hath done the same. He, who here obtrudes his armed pretensions upon us, hath secured the duration of his sensual Religion by the very same contrivance : A thing, in his ideas, so much of course, that he did not even object to Jesus's use of it, who had employed it before him ; and for no other pur pose than to cut off his, and all following pretensions to the like character. On the contrary, he avowed and maintained the general truth of the Nazarite's commission. Now (pursues the Deist) a method employed by a confessed impostor is taken up with an ill grace by the defender of true religion. But I draw a further consequence (says he) against the
Gospel,
Why then such aversion to the passion ? Evidently for this reason, the doctrine of REDEMPTION followed; and that completed the scheme of revelation, and (as we shall see) shut out the Impostor's pretences. M. Otter, a very intelligent traveller, of the Academy Royal of Inscriptions, tells us of a conference he had with a learned Persian. The Mahometan said, they reverenced all our sacred writings, except St. Paul's — quils respectent tons, rxceptt Saint Paul. [Voiage en Turque et en Perse, vol. i. p. 22.] ' Why was this exception? On the same principle : because St. Paul is full of the doctrine of REDEMPTION ; explains the Christian system by it; and makes the whole Faith depend upon it.
SERMON V. 121
Gospel, from this representation of Christianity. For if the preaching of moral truth and righteous ness were the whole of Jesus's character and office, then his mission did not answer its pur pose, the lasting reformation of mankind, in the knowledge of God, and in the practice of virtue : since the world soon fell back again into the state from which Jesus had delivered it ; as ap pears from the history of the times in which Ma homet appeared, and the advantages he made of that degeneracy."
Thus subjected to the insults and injuries of every kind of impostors, who set upon deluding the credulous, either by inventing NEW Revelations or by decrying the OLD, do these REPUBLISHERS ex pose the holy faith of Jesus: That faith which, we are told, was founded on a rock, impregnable to the assaults of men and demons ; to the sophisms of in fidelity, and the prestiges of imposture ! And so, indeed, it is, if we will take it as we find it ; if we will receive it as it came from above ; if we will preserve it pure and entire as it was delivered to the Saints, TILE REDEMPTION OF THE WORLD, BY
THE SON OF GOD, IN THE VOLUNTARY SACRIFICE Ok' HIMSELF UPON THE CROSS.
This secures * the character of Jesus fro.n the insults of false pretenders ; and his Gospel from the injuries of false reasoners.
For, first of all, if Jesus did, indeed, redeem
* See Div. Leg. Book IX. where the conformity of this Doctrine to right reason and the nature of things is evinced at large.
mankind,
i22 SERMON V.
mankind, and restore them to their lost inheritance, the scheme and progress of revelation is completed : which beginning at the LAPSE, naturally and neces sarily ends in the restoration and recovery of LIFE AND IMMORTALITY by the death and passion of our Lord. CHRISTIANITY considered in this view (and in this view only Scripture gives it us to consider) soon detects all the artiul pretences of imposture' ; and secures its own honour by virtue of its very es sence : the great scene of providence being now closed, in a full completion of its one, regular, en tire, and eternal purpose.
Secondly, if Jesus indeed redeemed mankind, then did he neither preach nor die in vain : it not being in man's power, with all his malice and perverse- ness, to defeat or make void the great purpose of his Coming. For though one part of his Mission was to instruct the world in Wisdom and Righteous ness, which it was in man's power to forget and neglect ; yet, what is chiefly essential in his character, and peculiar in his office, the Sanctification and Re demption of the world, man could not frustrate nor render ineffectual : For it is not in his power to make that to be undone which is once done and perfected.
The fastidious Caviller therefore hath employed his pains to very little purpose in attempting to dis credit Revelation from this topic. His laboured discourses on the moral state of the world, before and since the coming of Christ, are quite beside the question. For, though, where the comparison is fully and impartially stated, I will venture to say,
the
SERMON V. 123
the advantage will be found to lie on the side of our Religion: yet supposing the truths preached by Jesus, and the assistance given by the Holy Spirit, have riot much improved the general morals of man kind ; How does this tend to the discredit of the Gospel? unless the Gospel can be proved to have no natural tendency to make men better? But this is so desperate an undertaking, that, I believe, in fidelity will hardly be persuaded to engage in it Indeed the contrary is so true, that, as I have shewn elsewhere, when you lay together the state of PAG AW and CHRISTIAN virtue, one manifest and essential difference is found between them ; which is this, That in the Gentile world, men often acted wrong UPON PRINCIPLE; in the Christian always AGAINST PRIN CIPLE *. Now, not to insist upon the necessary restraint this must be upon vice ; it plainly demon strates the NATURAL TENDENCY of the Gospel-
truths to make men virtuous, and, to enforce them with a stronger impulse, did not suit the genius of a rational religion, whose object was free agency.
But the proper answer to this idle cavil is taken, as VA e say, from the topic before us. Instruction of the world in Wisdom and Righteousness was but the secondary end of Christ's mission. The first and primary, was to become its sanctification and redemption ; the one must needs be common to every revelation coming from God ; the other is pe culiar to the Christian : and this, as we have shewn, cannot possibly be frustrated, or rendered inef fectual.
* Div. Leg. Book iv. § 2.
To
124 SERMON V.
To conclude from all that hath been said : As we should not affect to pry into the nature of those things which God hath been pleased to withhold from our search, and to cover with the sacred veil of Mystery; so neither should we reject a Truth, expressly deliver ed, because we may not fully comprehend all the reasons on which it stands. In a word, as we should not venture to go on where the silence of Scripture directs us to stop; so neither should we presume to stop where, with so loud a voice, it commands us to go on.
Men have been made sufficiently sensible of the mischiefs attending the first of these indiscretions, the being wise ABOVE what is written: I have here endeavoured to shew, that the other, the being wise AGAINST what is written, is not attended with fewer inconveniences. What then remains but to choose the middle way, the way to become wise unto salvation ; and, neither, in / practice or speculation, to ADD to, nor to DIMINISH from, the WORD OF GOD?
Let us therefore religiously adhere to the doctrine of my text in its just extent, That Jesus Christ, of God, is made unto us WISDOM, and RIGHTEOUSNESS, and SANCTIFICATION, and REDEMPTION.
SERMON VI.
THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF THE MESSENGERS OF THE GOSPEL.
MATT. x. ver. 16.
BEHOLD I SEND YOU FORTH AS SHEEP IN THE MIDST or WOLVES: BE YE THEREFORE WISE
AS SERPENTS, AND HARMLESS AS DOVES.
SUCH was the direction given by our blessed Lord to his disciples, when he sent them out to preach the glad tidings of the Gospel.
The CHARACTER of the Christian Mission is de noted in these words, Behold, I send you forth as sheep: — And the CONDITION of an unbelieving World in the following, / send you in the midst of Wolves. Though the Faith was to be propagated only by the mild measures of persuasion, yet even this would provoke the wolfish disposition of the powers of darkness, to put in ure all the iniquitous contrivance of fraud and violence for its sup pression.
Their provident Master, therefore, in the conclud ing words of my text, delivers them a rule for the innocence and prudence of their own conduct. Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
A direction
126 SERMON VI.
A direction equally respecting their PRIVATE and their PUBLIC Character. Whereby, the first might correspond \vith the dignity of their office ; and the other, with the objects of their care. So that, as men, the HUMAN virtues; as missionaries, the SOCIAL are recommended to their practice : and both, under the familiar images of the serpent's wisdom, and the innocence of the dove.
What these human virtues are, the allusion in the figurative EXPRESSION will discover: What the social, must be determined by the occasion of the PRECEPT. Be ye therefore (says the blessed Jesus) wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. A direction, conveyed in two proverbial sayings, whose import .the Disciples perfectly understood.
The first alludes to a vulgar superstition of the ancient world, which gave credit to certain artists, who pretended to the power of rendering serpents innoxious by the force of charms, and incantations. The men who traded in this imposture, in order to hide their frequent miscarriages, made the people believe that some of these serpents had gotten a trick as good as their own ; which was to shut their ears to their inchantments. This counterplot was as readily believed, as the other's magic power, in an age, when every thing was well received, which excited the hearer's admiration. Hence the proverb of the deaf adder that stoppeth her ears ; which refuseth to hearthe voice of the charmer, charm he never so sweetly : by which, Moralists would infer the wisdom and safety of abstaining from unlawful pleasures.
The
SERMON VI. 127
The second, of being harmless as doves, alludes to as ancient and as fanciful an error of the Na turalists, that the dove is without a gall ; or, at least, bears it not within *.
The whole of this monition therefore, to the dis ciples in their private character, implies, That they should learn to abstain from all unlawful, unmanly and intemperate pleasures ; and to suppress in them selves all the sentiments of rage, anger, and revenge. The serpent's wisdom being directed against the CONCUPISCIBLE passions, as the dove's innocence is against the IRASCIBLE : and both together make one general precept for the subjection of our brutal nature to the rational : in which consists the exer cise of the hitman virtues.
Could any thing be more harmless than this me thod of propagating religion ? Could any thing be more holy than the manners of its propagators ? What regard to the rights of men, to the Laws of society, was enjoined to the Offerers of the Gospel! What neglect of the interests of flesh and blood was required of the Receivers of it ! TRUTH was the last ing foundation on which Jesus erected his Church : and \?'IRTUE the living principle which was to actuate its members.
Indeed the purity of his intentions and the rectitude of his measures are so evident from the evangelic history of his life and death, that the
* "Avtya fj.i] txpfa xohw txvroQvug, aM ottf tTEpx dexojjtwov ypct<pQvle$ [AlyuTrlioi 'EfpirEfctv ^wy^a^acrjv, S^GOM TO. 6vri<T9(& £f6a. EV exE/vwj y«p Trjv xotav e%u. Horapollinis Hicrugl. 1. ii. c. 48.
most
128 SERMON VL
most stubborn infidel is ready to clear him of fraudulent imposture, and to centre all his suspicions in a well-meaning ENTHUSIASM.
This is the last miserable refuge of obstinate im piety. And the order of the discourse, which now brings us to consider the precept of the text, as it respects the messengers of Jesus in their PUBLIC CAPACITY, will enable us to expose it in all its nakedness.
Be ye THEREFORE wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. Wherefore ? because they were sent forth as sheep in the midst of wolves ; that is, unarmed and defenceless amidst the powers of the Prince of this world. The virtues, recommended to them under their public capacity, were, we see, objective to these powers ; and therefore, of the social kind ; and con sisted in prudence and justice ; as the other, recom mended to them in their private capacity, and objective to themselves, were of the human ; and con sisted in temperance and forbearance. And here let me observe, in honour of God's word (which should be the principal end of all discourses from this place), the mutual connexion and reciprocal influence, which the two parts have on one another. The humanvirtues were to recommend their MISSION; and the social, to recommend their PERSONS. But to proceed.
If Jesus had been an Enthusiast, there was no time when the fanatic spirit would so forcibly have broken out as at this juncture; the critical juncture of sending his disciples abroad to convert the world. An Enthusiast, possessed with the high glory of propagating and establishing a new religion, to arise
and
SERMON VI. 129
and be denominated from himself, would have his spiritual passions kindled and inflamed to their ut most bearing, at that important moment of com mencing his enterprise.
But the words of Jesus upon this occasion bespeak their Author to be perfectly cool, and collected within himself. Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of icolves.
Let us reflect upon them with attention. Though I am not altogether of opinion with tho^e who con sider the premonition (to which the words of my text allude) so frequently repeated by Jesus to his followers, of the various persecution that awaited the profession of his Gospel, as the clearest evidence of his prophetic spirit: because I think a common observer of the state and genius of the then pre vailing superstitions might easily foresee what would be the early fate of a Religion supported by no other powers than those of Reason and Grace, when it openly opposed its truth and purity to a world sunk deep in error and corruption. Yet so far must al ways be confessed, that this serious attention to the event would not have made part of the Character of a heated and inflamed Enthusiast. When we find, therefore, the Founder of our holy religion calmly attentive to the reception his Doctrine was likely to meet with from the People, and provident of the treatment his Servants were sure to receive from the Magistrate, we must needs conclude that he then possessed himself in that dignity of repose, under a comprehensive view of his scheme, which
VOL. IX. K became
130 SERMON VI.
became a great Prophet, superior to all the infir mities as well as chances of humanity.
But his provison for his faithful servants did not stop at the salutary warning here given unto them. When he had hinted at the treatment of the world towards them, Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves, he directs what should be their conduct to the world > Be ycy therefore, wise as serpents, ami harmless as doves. A direction which none under the influence of a fanatic spirit would be either forward to give, or fond to see observed. For religious Enthusiasm, as we know by sad experience, places its chief glory in despising human prudence, and in violating and trampling upon human peace.
Its two great states or stages are the SUFFERINGS and the TRIUMPHS of its deluded Instruments. And, in both, this hot and fiery spirit fatally hurries them into the most mischievous extremes.
At the new birth of a visionary Sect, which is generally the suffering state of Enthusiasm, those under its influence are apt to give great advantages to their opposers, and to bring as great discredit on themselves. And all for want of this wisdom of the serpent \ for want of using these means of human prudence which both reason and nature urge and dictate to us, for the support of our opinions, and for the preservation of our persons.
The method Enthusiasm chuses to employ ia propagating its tenets- is the reverse to this wisdom of the serpent; as we may see by comparing the practice of modern Enthusiasts with that of the great
Apostle
S E R M O N VI. 131
Apostle of the Gentiles ; who had formed his con duct on this monition of his Master. He becan-c all things to men, that he might gain some * : They comply in nothing, through a visionary fervour to gain all. St. Paul, with this allegoric picture of wis dom before his eyes, was polite, artful, and insinuat ing ; always on the watch, to take honest advantages of every principle and practice of his adversaries ; in order the more effectually to recomm°nd the Gospel of Jesus to their favour |- The Fanatic is stubborn, rude, positive, and overhearing. So far from being disposed to turn the best side of his adversaries' wrong opinions forward, the better to set off his own, that he is ever prompt to misrepre sent their right ones \ and abhors the temptation of suffering you to be of his Faith ; unless you express it in his own words, and allow him all his consequences. And mistaking the precept of being at enmity with the world for an aversion to men as well as principles, he helps forward an unjust persecution from the public, when he should be reconciling particulars to his pretended mission.
Nor is his conduct less extravagant nowr it con- cerns the care of his person, than before, in the re commendation of his opinions. Part of the yisdom of' the serpent consists, as Jesus elsewhere explains it, in prudently evading the fury of our enemies ; so